Ukraine sets its sights on boosting high-tech exports, hails digital resilience

Ukraine is targeting significant growth in high-tech exports over the next few years, according to the country's minister for digital transformation, Oksana Ferchuk. Speaking to Reuters, Ferchuk highlighted Ukraine's potential to boost its military technology exports as well as its digital innovation sector through the use of artificial intelligence.

The minister emphasized Ukraine's ability to leverage its expertise in military technologies and digital innovation to increase high-tech exports, drawing on lessons learned from maintaining digital services during the ongoing war with Russia. Ferchuk expressed Ukraine's willingness to share its experiences and collaborate with other nations, including cooperation agreements with the US, the EU, and international institutions.

Ukraine's resilience in digital services during the war has been a key factor in its ability to explore new opportunities, including helping other countries build drone defenses and incorporating AI technologies into various sectors. The minister stressed the importance of government regulation to accelerate the development of the high-tech segment and ensure cheaper products and quicker innovation for stakeholders.

Ferchuk also mentioned Ukraine's plans to move data centers and infrastructure underground in response to Russian attacks, but emphasized that the digital services remained operational due to built-in redundancies in locations and cloud providers.