Reuters reported that Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree on 2 November requiring owners of non-state data centres to reserve 10% of their capacity to support the country’s IT infrastructure. The requirement follows Ukrainian drone attacks in October that struck data centres operated by Yandex and Sberbank. AI Affairs previously reported that Russia helped Yandex find new sites after drone strikes hit data centres.
Putin instructed the Digital Development Ministry to inventory capacity and floor space at privately owned data centres across Russia. A government commission to be established under the decree will be able to order operators to release reserved capacity. Operators must provide access within 24 hours of a commission decision.
The decree also permits temporary use of data centres abroad, subject to approval by the FSB security service.
