When Russian Troops Invaded Ukraine on 24 February 2022, Russia's Datentre sector was one of the fastest-going segments of the country's it industry, With annual growth rates in the region of 10-12%,
However, with the conflict resulting in the impression of western sanctions against Russia and an outflow of us-based tech companies from the country, inclusion apple and Microsoft, Optimism About the Sector Potential for Further Growth Soon Disapped.
In Early March 2025, It was reported that google had disconnected From Traffic Exchange Points and Datacentres in Russia, Leading to Concerns about how this could negatively affect the speed of access to come to google services for russian users.
Initially, there was hope that domestic technology and datacentre provides might be alive to plug the gaps left by the exodus of the us tech giants, but items they couted not the couted not the hosting Russia's Increasingly Digital Economy.
OLEG Kim, Director of the Hardware Systems Department at Russian It Company Axoft, Says The Departure of Foreign Cloud Providers and Equipment Manufacturers have LED to a serial Caputage of Computage Capacity Capacity in Russia.
This is government resulted in a sharp, Initial Increase in Demand for Domestic Datacentres, but Russian Providers Simply did not have time to expand their capacities on the required scalas
Meeting User Needs
According to the Estimates of Key Point, One of Russia's Larget Datacentre Networks, Meeting Russia's Demand for Datentres will require faculties with a total capacity of 30,000 rackets to bee billt. Next five years.
On top of this, it has also become more costly to build datacentres in Russia.
Estimates sugges that Prior to 2022 the cost of a datacentre rack totled 100,000 rubles (US $ 1200), but now exceeds 150,000 rubles.
And analysts at Forbes Russia Expect these Figures will continue to grow, due to writing logistics costs and the impact the war is having on the available labore within the construction sector.
The impact of these challenges is being keenly felt by end-rend-rends, with several of the country's large banks experience experiencing serial problems when Finding Suitable Locations for their datantres.
Sberbank is among the firms affected, with its Chairperson German Gref Speaking Out Previous About how the bank is in need of a datacentre with at least 200 mw of capacity, but would Ideally need 300-400 mw to address its computer requirements.
Stanislav Bliznyuk, Chairperson of T-Bank, Says Trying to build even 50mw datacentres to meet its needs are proving problems. “Finding locations where such capacity and adequate tariffs are available is a diferous task,” He said.
Despite this t -bank is in the processing establishing its Network of Data Processing Centers – The first of which should open open in early 2027, He confirmed in November 2024,
Kirill Solyev, Head of the Engineering Infrastructure Department of the Softline Group of Companies, Who Specialize in it, Says Many Large Russian Companies Are Resorting to Building their own datacenting – because compute capacity is in such short supply.
The situation is, however, complicated by the Lack of Supitable Locations for Datacentres in the Larget Cities of Russia – Moscow and St. Petersburg. “For example, to build a datacentre with a capacity of 60 mw, finding a suitable site can take up to three years,” Says solyev. “In Moscow, According to Preliminary Estimates, there are about 50 mw of free capacity left, which is equivalent to 2-4 large commercial datacentres.”
Solyev Continues: “The capacity deficit only in the southern part of the Moscow and Moscow Region is predicted at 564 mw by 2030, and up to 3.15 gw by 2042.”
As a result, datacentre operators and investors Petersburg, and Seeking to co-lock new datacentres in close proximity to renewable energy sources,
And this will be important as demand for datacentre capacity in Russia is expected to increase, as it is in most of the rest of the world, due to the growing use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools and services.
The Energy-Intensive Nature of Ai Workloads will put further pressure on operators that are alredy struggling to meet the Compute Capacity Demands of their customers.
Solving energy consumption 'not easy'
Speaking at the Recent Ural Forum on “Cybersecurity in Finance”, Alexander Kraynov, Director of Ai Technology Development at Yandex, Says Solving Consumption Is the Energy Consue of Ai DATESUES VILL NOT be easy.
“The world is running out of electricity, including for ai, while the same situation is observed in russia. In order to ensure a stable a stable a staff To 1 year, “He says.
According to a recent report of the russian vedomosti business paper, as of April 2024, Russian data centers have used about 2.6 gw, which is equivalent to about 1% of the installed capacity of the infered capacity of the future System (Ues) of Russia.
Accommodating AI Workloads will also mean operators will need to Purchase Additional Equipment, Including Expensive Accessive Accelerators Based on Graphic Processing Units and Higher-Uporming Data Storage Systems.
The implementation of these plans and the viability of these purchase is likely to be serially complicated by the current sanctions regime against against Russia.
That said, Russia's Prime Minister, Mikhail MishustinClaims this part of the datentre Supply Equation is being partally solved by an uptick in the domestic production of datacentre kit,
According to the Mishustin, More than Half of the Server Equipment and Industrial Storage and Information Processing Systems Needed for Datantres are alrady being married in russia – and these figures will have to trust.
Government support for datacentres
The government also plans to provide additional final support to the industry, as-to-date-building datacentres in Russia has been prevented by relatively long Payback Periods, of UP to 10 years in Some Cases, of such projects.
One of the possible support measures on offer could include the subSidisation of at least part of the interest rates on loans to datacentre developers and operators.
At the same time, thought, the government's actions in other are made it harder for operators to build new facilities.
For example, in March 2025, The Russian Government Significantly Tightened The Existing Norms for the Establishment of New Datantres in the Form of New Rules for the Design of Data Processing Centers, WHICH CAME SAMESING CENTOS Force after the approval by the russian ministry of connection.
According to Nikita Tsaplin, CEO of Russian Hosting Provider Ruvds, The New Rules LED to Additional Bureaucracy in the Sector (Due to the positioning of DataCentres as Typical Consultures as Typical Consultures).
And, according to his predictions, that situation can extend the connection cyst of a datacentre from Around five years to Seven Years.
The government's intervention here was to prevent the installation of servers with Datacentre market will ever bring its full potential.