How Technology Is Reshaping Ukraine’s Economy Beyond the IT Sector

Before 2022, when people talked about technology in Ukraine, they were usually referring to the IT sector. Even now, IT remains one of the main focuses when discussing this topic. This is understandable. Ukraine’s IT sector generated USD6.8 billion in service exports in 2025, comparable to figures from 2021 before Russia’s full-scale invasion. Accounting for 3.2% of GDP, IT services represented 43% of the country’s total service exports and the number of Ukrainian IT professionals is estimated to be approximately 303,000.

Yet focusing solely on IT means investors risk missing out on a much bigger economic story.

Technology has been transformational beyond the IT sector, changing how Ukrainian businesses generate and store energy, manage logistics, deliver financial services, automate selected processes, and maintain operations under wartime constraints. Full-scale war has accelerated this process. Infrastructure damage, power disruptions, labour shortages, and unstable logistics have pushed businesses to adopt new operational and technological solutions more quickly.

In many cases, technology has not been a discretionary investment or a long-term transformation programme. It has been the practical answer to an immediate operational problem, considers Sergii Popov, Partner and Head of Tax & Legal in company KPMG in Ukraine, in his column to Mind media.

Ukraine’s technology base extends beyond software exports

Of course, the IT sector remains the foundation of this development and remains a key component of Ukraine’s economy. Of those approximately 303,000 Ukrainian IT professionals in 2025, 245,000 were living and working in the country itself. By the end of that year, the Diia.City legal and tax regime included 3,095 resident companies employing 130,000 IT professionals. The Government of Ukraine has also announced plans to further develop the regime through “Diia.City 2.0”, which would expand its initial scope to comprise hardware and deep-tech companies, including businesses working in robotics and prosthetics.

These figures demonstrate more than the resilience of a single industry, offering an insight into how a substantial domestic base of software, engineering, and product-development expertise has potential applications in sectors other than IT services.

Energy is becoming a business capability

A similar transformation can be seen in Ukraine’s approach to energy. Before the full-scale invasion, investments in renewable energy and distributed generation were usually discussed in the context of ESG goals, in terms of sustainability, efficiency, and returns. Following repeated attacks on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, such technologies have now become instruments of business continuity.

The initial response to widespread outages relied heavily on generators and other temporary measures. This was a naturally reactive solution. However, companies are now proactively moving towards more structured combinations of gas-fired generation, solar installations, and battery energy storage, anticipating energy concerns in a way that systematically builds systems with enhanced resilience.

Financing bears this story out. In 2025, Ukrainian banks processed more than 4,500 applications to finance renewable-energy projects with a combined capacity of 705 MW. Auctions organised by Transmission systems operation Ukrenergo supported the commissioning of 423 MW of flexible balancing capacity. Energy industry investor and operator DTEK launched its own 200 MW battery energy storage project in 2025, as well as implementing a EUR450 million expansion of its Tyligulska wind farm facilities. Meanwhile, the number of energy-storage licences issued by National Commission for State Regulation of Energy and Public Utilities rose from two licences in 2024 to 26 in 2025.

For businesses, this increased focus on the practicalities of implementing and balancing renewable energy capacities results in a different approach to operational planning. Manufacturers, warehouses, retailers, and office operators increasingly need to consider generation, storage, and consumption together. Energy autonomy is becoming part of investment planning and risk assessment, rather than an issue managed entirely by an external utility provider.

While technology cannot fully eliminate the threat to infrastructure, it can reduce dependence on individual points of failure and give companies more control over their ability to operate.

Digital finance demonstrates Ukraine’s capacity for adoption

Ukraine’s financial sector has also demonstrated what broad technology adoption in response to external pressures looks like.

With the onset of the full-scale invasion, the National Bank of Ukraine activated contingency plans put in place after the Russian annexation of Crimea in 2014. One aspect involved communicating a preference for card-based transactions to market players and retailers, especially stressing the importance of cashless payments to reduce to national demand for cash. While cash withdrawals were limited in March 2022, there were no similar restrictions on cashless transactions. These actions were taken in partnership with a rapid and thorough digitalisation of the financial sector, with the government’s Diia portal streamlining online document verification to provide remote account opening and business registration. Such actions were instrumental in maintaining banking and financial stability.

The transformational impact of these decisions has been long-lasting. By 2025, cashless payments in Ukraine accounted for approximately 95.5% of all payment-card transactions by number and 65.4% by value. Around 41% of consumers in the annual Mastercard MasterIndex survey said that they solely used fully digital cards without a physical equivalent, while approximately 60% regularly made contactless digital-card payments using smartphones or other NFC-enabled devices.

The NBU has also continued to develop digital financial infrastructure through the System of Electronic Payments (SEP) and BankID, as well as other related initiatives. Transactions processed through the SEP increased by 23% in 2025, with further growth and trust assured by with the launch of SEP 4.0 based on ISO 20022 standards in 2023. This was followed by the introduction of TrackSEP in December 2025, giving users the ability to monitor payment status in real time.

As can be observed, the economic effect of these developments was not limited to merely enhancing consumer convenience. Technological uplift of Ukraine’s digital financial infrastructure was vital to improving the efficiency, transparency, and accessibility of banking services, while making more transactions available remotely.

That capacity is important for potential investors. A technology product does not succeed merely because it exists. It needs customers and institutions prepared to use it. Ukraine’s experience with digital finance therefore suggests that the domestic market can support rapid adoption when technology solves a clear problem.

Traditional industries are also experiencing technological improvements

Technology is also helping to digitally transform traditional industries in response to challenging conditions.

Ukraine’s logistics sector has had to adapt to restricted maritime and air routes, damaged infrastructure, and a greater reliance on land connections with the European Union. Electronic customs declarations, IoT-enabled cargo tracking, and predictive route analytics are becoming increasingly important components of logistics operations.

These tools support the management of increasingly complex supply chains as businesses contend with longer delivery times, elevated transport costs, and infrastructure-related uncertainty.

Agriculture is undergoing a similar change. Investment has increasingly focused on logistics, storage, energy autonomy, processing capacity, demining, and modernisation. Agro-industrial company Kernel, for example, invested USD25 million in logistics capacity and asset modernisation between July–December 2025, including precision-farming equipment. Kernel is also looking to invest USD400 million in its own dedicated energy segment across 2026–2027, expanding solar and wind capacities. Agri-producer and grain exporter Nibulon has similarly increased focus on asset modernisation, digital solutions and productivity upgrades, investing USD22.5 million in these specific areas between 2022–H1 2026 with the goal of maximising efficiency and preparing for post-war growth, as well as a further USD10 million dedicated to automation projects and IT infrastructure/security.

For agricultural businesses, technology can therefore help address several constraints simultaneously: scarce labour, unstable energy supply, contaminated land, high transport costs, and changing export conditions. Precision equipment and other forms of agricultural modernisation are also becoming increasingly relevant as businesses respond such issues.

Such decisions are therefore taken to prevent compounding polycrisis conditions and harden operations against further energy or logistics challenges. Across energy, logistics, finance, and agriculture, the pattern is similar; with new technologies adopted to address specific constraints and prepare for future growth potential. The economic impact comes not from digitisation as an abstract objective, but from lower downtime, better information, more precise use of resources, and greater control over essential operations.

Investors should look beyond sector labels

This wider technology transformation should influence how investors assess Ukraine as a prospect.

The relevant question is not simply whether a potential investment belongs to the technology sector. A battery-storage facility, an automated production line, a robotics solution, digital banking or cargo-tracking platforms may all be classified under different industries, but each combines technology, capital, data, and regulation.

Investors should therefore examine the underlying business case. Does the product address a real operating problem? Can it be produced, maintained, and financed at scale? Is the intellectual property involved adequately protected? Does the regulatory framework support commercial deployment? Can demand extend beyond current wartime conditions? Is there a credible route into European or global markets?

These questions matter because rapid development can also bring risk. Businesses must also consider governance, cybersecurity, standardisation, and intellectual-property management, as well as how potential weaknesses in these areas could limit their ability to attract financing and expand internationally. These are not secondary compliance issues. They directly affect a company’s value and its ability to scale.

Ukraine also needs regulatory frameworks that recognise how quickly the boundaries between sectors are shifting. Diia.City offers an already existing example of how a properly implemented legal and tax framework can support digital innovation, improve investment attractiveness, and provide companies with a more flexible operating environment. This demonstrates how clear and predictable rules can reduce friction, support innovation, and help companies retain expertise and capital in Ukraine.

The next test is scale

Ukraine’s ability to develop and adopt technology under pressure is already evident. The next test is whether these capabilities can be scaled into sustainable businesses and industries.

That will require more than ingenuity.

Beyond capital, international investors and partners can contribute market access, joint production, supply-chain integration, and management expertise. Ukrainian businesses, in turn, will need to demonstrate that rapid development can be matched by predictable delivery, transparent operations, and a coherent long-term vision.

Given the nation-wide scale of the destruction, there is an understandable tendency to discuss Ukraine’s economic future primarily in terms of reconstruction. Rebuilding physical infrastructure will undoubtedly require substantial investment. However, restoring what has been damaged is just one part of the economic challenge that Ukraine faces.

Technology is already influencing how Ukraine produces, pays for, and transports goods, as well as how the country continues to manage energy and develop new industrial capacities. If these capabilities can be translated into commercially sustainable products and businesses, the economic value will extend well beyond the IT industry and further than the immediate demands of war.