Constancy in Indo-Russian relations has been proven again with trade between the two countries shooting up to $66 billion by 2024 up five-fold in just the past five years. In July 2024 two countries set an ambitious target of $100 billion in annual trade by 2030. Meanwhile Vijay Govardhandas Kalantri Chairman of the Russia-India Trade House predicts this milestone could even come much earlier—by 2028—because of the expanding cooperation in emerging sectors like artificial intelligence (AI). Certainly challenges however are left to realize this potential.   Historically trade between Russia and India used to be fairly modest and averaged about $10.1 billion per year prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. The cause of this newly found momentum was actually from various sectors like increased energy agriculture infrastructure and manufacturing. Emerging as a significant player Russia now holds positions as a major supplier of crude oil coal uranium and fertilizers greatly contributing to energy and food security in India. In return India offers a very favorable life source to the Russian pharmaceutical industry providing its market with cheap high-quality medicines and alternatives amid the exit of Western markets.  Out of the $66 billion volume of total trade in 2024 imports from Russia accounted for $61.44 billion while Indias exports to Russia were only $4.26 billion. This seems skewed in the sense that both need to set targets in their short-term planning and priorities to achieve diversification in their economic roadmap through 2030.  A critical step according to London-based think tank Hagman Global Strategies is adopting national currencies for trade settlements. “The evolving rupee-ruble mechanism must streamline transactions and resolve payment bottlenecks” the think tank notes highlighting a key hurdle in scaling bilateral trade.  AI: A New Frontier  While energy and pharmaceuticals remain cornerstones AI is emerging as a transformative area of collaboration. Hagman Global Strategies points out that Russia has pledged $6 billion for AI development by 2030. Though modest compared to China’s multibillion-dollar investments or the US’s $4.9 billion annual AI budget this commitment underscores Russia’s focus on innovation—a resource India can tap into.  The AI ecosystem in Russia is showing results already. A recent deployment of an AI-powered robotic waste-sorting system in Glazov a city in Udmurtia received national attention. In healthcare startups Botkin.AI and Webiomed are utilizing AI for medical imaging predictive analytics and early disease detection. Yandex famously called Russias Google ranks with its large language model YandexGPT and generative platform YandexART on the international AI leader boards (the only Russian technologies to have gained this distinction). This progress is backed up by a vast talent pool: since 2019 around 50000 machine learning and data science professionals have graduated from Russian universities.   India and its National Strategy on AI and booming IT sector constitute an even more natural complement to Russia. India is good at scaling up software solutions for a billion-plus people while Russia has deep knowledge in mathematics and science which are core pillars of advanced AI says Hagman Global Strategies. They could jointly create cutting-edge technologies such as large language modeling and autonomous systems to facilitate a marriage of application-driven innovation from India and theoretical prowess from Russia.   The two countries must resolve the trade imbalance improve the rupee-rouble mechanism and hasten collaboration in AI and logistics for the $100 billion target by the year 2028.