When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here’s how it works .
The Sasovo facility, one of Yandex's five major data centers, accommodates tens of thousands of servers, including two Nvidia A100-based supercomputers named Chervonenkis and Lyapunov. Chervonenkis, the company's most powerful system, was once ranked as the world's 19 th most powerful supercomputer in the Top 500 list in 2021, but by today's standards its 21.53 FP64 PFLOPS is enough only for the 101 st place in the list. Due to Western sanctions, Yandex can no longer upgrade the system. Both machines have been used to train AI models, including YandexGPT, Russia's leading large language model. Yandex's third supercomputer, Galushkin, is located in Vladimir.
So far, the company has not disclosed whether its supercomputers were affected by the strike, though judging by the massive fire caused by the drone incident, the systems' chances of survival are low. The potential damage to Nvidia-powered computing infrastructure could be extremely painful for Russia's AI industry, which is already constrained by restrictions on exports of advanced AI accelerators and servers to Russia. If the machines are indeed destroyed or damaged, many of its elements may be lost forever, and Yandex will be forced to use Chinese infrastructure for future model training.
The attack also disrupted Yandex Cloud infrastructure, so the company is recommending customers use alternative zones. Although Yandex claims that its key consumer services remained operational, users reported problems with Yandex Mail, Disk, Documents, Pay, and Market. Other affected services reportedly included Cian, Litmarket, Russian Railways, Spartak Moscow, cryptocurrency exchange Rapira, Astral, and the 1C business solutions. Corporate systems operated by T-Bank, Ozon, and Wildberries also experienced disruptions, according to Meduza . A Moscow-region bus operator suspended online ticket sales, while Detector404 registered 58,268 complaints over 24 hours. Many Russian media outlets, including state propaganda RIA Novosti, Vesti, and Interfax, were also down following the attack on 'infrastructure partner,' reports RBC .
It is noteworthy that the Yandex data center occupies former premises of the Sasta machine-tool factory, where Yandex established operations in 2014. Sasta manufactures industrial equipment supplied to various Russian manufacturers, including defense-related enterprises, and is therefore under Western sanctions. Regional authorities reported a fire at an industrial facility following the attack, but it remains unknown whether the intended target was the factory or Yandex's computing infrastructure. Still, no matter the target, Ukraine's sanctions against Russia's economy and military complex seem to be generally more efficient than those imposed by the West.
Russia bombs Ukrainian data centers in latest escalation
Key considerations
- Investor positioning can change fast
- Volatility remains possible near catalysts
- Macro rates and liquidity can dominate flows
Reference reading
- https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/data-centers/SPONSORED_LINK_URL
- https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/data-centers/ukrainian-drones-hit-russias-yandex-data-centers-housing-two-top-supercomputers-major-outage-follows-retaliatory-strike#main
- https://www.tomshardware.com/membership
- Arc Raiders publisher developing AI anti-cheat stack in escalating war with cheaters
- At AI Day Singapore, NVIDIA and Partners Showcase AI Advancements Across Southeast Asia
- Ukrainian drones hit Russia's Yandex data centers housing two top supercomputers
- Crazed modder straps 360mm AIO radiator to laptop, cuts temps to below 40 degrees
- NVIDIA, Microsoft Kick Off a New Beginning for Windows PCs With RTX Spark and AI Agents
Informational only. No financial advice. Do your own research.