Ukrainian strikes on Russian data centers have caused widespread disruptions to digital services and could slow the development of artificial intelligence in Russia for an extended period, according to an Associated Press report published on October 22.
AP reported that Ukraine attacked three major Yandex data centers in October, along with a Sberbank facility and infrastructure associated with the VK social network. The damage affected computing capacity used to operate online services and develop artificial intelligence technologies.
Following the attacks, users and companies reported disruptions to banking transactions, e-commerce, location-based services, taxi bookings and cloud systems. Problems also affected Yandex's Alice voice assistant and other products.
The consequences extended to Russia's judicial system. Some arbitration court hearings were reportedly canceled or postponed, while access to electronic databases was disrupted.
AP correspondents interviewed users affected by the outages. Moscow residents described being unable to receive online shopping orders and having difficulty using taxi services.
Experts said restoring damaged data centers could take months or even years. Server equipment is vulnerable not only to direct physical damage but also to heat, smoke and contamination following fires.
The consequences could be especially serious for artificial intelligence projects. Training large AI models requires high-performance computing systems and specialized graphics processing units, which Russian companies face restrictions on obtaining because of sanctions.
Yandex uses several supercomputers to develop and train AI models. According to AP, damage to such infrastructure could delay new research, while replacing the equipment could be costly and time-consuming.
The company said most of its core cloud services had been restored in the following days by using other data centers in Russia. Yandex did not publicly disclose the full extent of the equipment damage.
AP's investigation also links the vulnerability of Russia's digital infrastructure to the government's data localization policies. Requirements to store substantial amounts of information inside the country limit opportunities to distribute computing capacity geographically.
By contrast, Ukraine expanded its use of infrastructure abroad to host some critical digital services and data after the start of Russia's full-scale invasion.
The attacks on Russian data centers illustrate the extent to which daily life and the operations of government agencies and businesses depend on physical computing infrastructure.
However, assessments of the long-term damage to AI development remain expert forecasts. Reliable estimates of the time required to restore all affected equipment and the amount of computing capacity lost have not yet been established.