- Russian companies can now be approved to use overseas data center facilities
- 10% of Russian data center capacities must be reserved for government use
- The country could be exploring hiding data centers underground
Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed an emergency decree allowing domestic companies to temporarily use overseas data centers after a series of Ukrainian drone attacks on the country’s own data centers.
Importantly, companies can’t just up and leave homegrown data centers – the government would still have to approve any arrangements, likely assessing the availability of domestic compute before granting permission.
Under the change in rules, Russian data center operators would also have to reserve 10% of their capacity for emergency government use – they would have to give up this capacity at just 24 hours’ notice, if it comes to it.
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Russia may be forced into using foreign data centers
The news follows intensified actions by Ukraine on the country’s digital infrastructure, with three major Yandex facilities across Sasovo, Kaluga and Vladimir impacted and taking both some Yandex services offline as well as other services operated by third parties through Yandex’s infrastructure.
Yandex is responsible for three major supercomputers, one of which was ranked 19th globally in a 2021 study. Sasovo was home to two of these, which were instrumental to model training. It’s believed that all three are still in-tact, but have likely been relocated or are in the process.
Responding to the severity of international threats on digital infrastructure, Russia is now exploring protecting data centers in subterranean facilities, it seems.
State-owned telecoms company Rostelcom is said to be in discussions with mining company Norilsk, per Ars Technica, while one governor has suggested building data centers inside open-pit coal mines.
But actions are not one-sided – Russia had previously struck Ukrainian data center facilities, with Ukraine opting to move many critical services into overseas cloud infrastructure.
Still, these latest development show how data centers and other digital infrastructure have become increasingly important targets for modern warfare.
For Russia, the emergency decision to permit overseas hosting marks a major shift in the country’s major efforts to become digitally sovereign, highlighting the sheer severity of these attacks.
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Craig Hale
