Ukrainian Drone Strikes Push Russian Data Centers Underground

Russian tech companies are rushing to harden and conceal their data centers underground after Ukrainian drone strikes damaged facilities housing AI supercomputers and disrupted cloud services for millions of Russian users.

State-owned telecom Rostelecom has raised the possibility of moving some Russian data centers underground in talks with nickel and palladium mining company Norilsk, according to the newspaper Vedomosti. Data Center Dynamics also noted a recent proposal by a Russian regional governor to build data centers inside open-pit coal mines, with green public parks planted above as camouflage.

The strikes have degraded or knocked out data centers operated by tech giant Yandex, state-owned bank Sberbank, social media site VKontakte and the Russian Ministry of Finance. On November 2, Putin signed a decree ordering data center operators to set aside 10 percent of available space and capacity in case the government requires it, according to Meduza - a possible sign of growing Kremlin concern about the vulnerability of Russian cloud infrastructure.

Source: Ars Technica