Russian President Vladimir Putin was welcomed by a dancing robot as he arrived at an artificial intelligence conference in Moscow on Wednesday.

Putin then took to the stage at the AI Journey conference, telling the audience that Russia "must possess a whole range of its own technologies and products in the field of active artificial intelligence."

"The entire spectrum of such models must be trained and fully controlled by Russian specialists, at all stages," he added.

Putin noted that creating new data centres and building new compact nuclear power sites to power them is a top priority for Russia.

"In less than two decades, primarily in the Urals, Siberia, and the Far East, we plan to build 38 nuclear power units. Their total capacity will be almost equal to the capacity of all currently operating nuclear power plants," Putin said.