Summarizing SPIEF 2026: BRICS as a "Sovereignty Platform" for the Multipolar World

This year’s iteration of Russia’s premier annual economic conference, the 29th St Petersburg International Economic Form (SPIEF) (June 3–6, 2026), has served to legitimize an important rhetorical shift about BRICS’s status not only as a group of major developing economies but also as a space that is gradually displacing legacy technology leaders and taking on the mantle of technological leadership itself. The association’s member states possess significant digital potential and the group itself has already become the go-to 'platform' for showcasing and exercising the sovereignty of the emerging multipolar world.

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s speech at the plenary session on June 5 evoked the greatest interest among SPIEF participants. In his keynote address, Putin focused on artificial intelligence (AI) first of all as a question of technological sovereignty, infrastructure independence, and the future competitiveness of Russia and its fellow BRICS members.

In particular, the Russian head of state noted that the BRICS countries have over the past quarter century posted substantial growth in their exports of high-tech products to the point where, today, these nations account for more than one-third of global supply, thus testifying to a cardinal change in the geography of the global tech sector. Indeed, BRICS has emerged as one of the growth centres of the world economy overall. In Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) terms, the BRICS countries’ aggregate share of global Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is in the range of approximately 40%, while virtually half (49%) of total global economic growth over the past five years has been attributable to BRICS as whole, compared to the G7 countries’ more modest share of about 18% in the same period.

Putin further highlighted three technologies that, going forward, will shape citizens’ lives, business activities, and government operations: artificial intelligence (AI), of course, but also autonomous systems and platform-based solutions. AI is a technology that enables processing large datasets and making optimal decisions and adopting the best solutions in virtually all fields of activity. Autonomous systems are, in turn, linked to the sharp rise in labour productivity and sea-changes in entire sectors of the economy, while platform-based solutions promise the capability of direct, automated, just-in-time exchange of information, as well as deal-making opportunities, among market players.

Given that the global technological agenda cannot and will not remain the exclusive monopoly of the legacy centres of power, these three technologies are slated to serve as a kind of underlying 'infrastructure of multipolarity.' Those countries that can successfully develop and deploy these technologies will be capable of building up their own industrial, financial, educational, and governance systems. Meanwhile, those countries that neglect to do so, and thus remain merely users of outside solutions, will by default end up under the yoke of a new form of foreign dependency.

In this regard, it was telling that the Business Programme of SPIEF 2026 also served to further advance and carry forward the discussion from last year’s SPIEF about tasking the BRICS member states’ technological alliance with a more concrete applied objective, namely creating working mechanisms in support of economic connectivity and cohesiveness across and within the group  overall.

An entire BRICS-related session at SPIEF 2025 was devoted to practical formats for international cooperation, such as creating long-term technological partnerships, promoting Russian digital solutions in external markets, elaborating a set of common standards, developing an open software code, and encouraging the joint development of high-tech products. At this year’s event, participants discussed already not so much determining the underlying principles for cooperation, as much as overcoming concrete infrastructural barriers, such as instituting transport and logistics harmonization, synchronizing national accounting rules, simplifying international settlements, developing export channels, and more closely integrating national 'one window' facilities for investors. BRICS was presented as a promising space for business diplomacy, where new rules for trade and investment should take shape through the process of practical interaction between and among companies, banks, development institutions, and export promotion agencies. 

A separate focus of the digital agenda at SPIEF 2026 was the imperative need to establish open datasets that directly reflect national cultural norms and identity. Amid the wide-ranging discussions on the rapid advance of AI, one thought that resonated with many participants was that the national digital development strategies of individual countries should factor in the vital importance of upholding and protecting their distinctive cultural identities. The basic model should not simply be functional but must also be seamlessly compatible with the respective national language, societal norms, and cultural values.

SPIEF 2026 has demonstrated that BRICS is gradually transitioning from its status as a 'clearinghouse' platform for political and economic coordination toward playing the critical role of the pre-eminent infrastructure platform for the rapidly emerging multipolar world. The conversation has already moved beyond just building trade links, expanding the association’s membership, or summit declarations on fostering a just world order, and is increasingly focusing on tackling the more complex and challenging task of achieving sustainable technological leadership.