Ukrainian drones hit Russia's top data centre in attack on AI ambitions

MOSCOW: Ukrainian drones hit Russia's biggest data centre on Wednesday (Oct 14), part of a series of attacks appearing to target Moscow's ambitions to develop Russian artificial intelligence capabilities on a par with those from the US and China.

The strike on the Balakovo data centre, owned by Sberbank, the country's largest bank and technology company, followed three attacks in the past week on data centres owned by Russian technology group Yandex.

"We confirm that the data processing centre was attacked. At the same time, all of Sberbank's systems and services are operating normally and without disruption," Sberbank First Deputy CEO Alexander Vedyakhin told reporters.

Russian President Vladimir Putin held a previously unannounced meeting on Wednesday with top officials on "information security", in which Sberbank CEO German Gref took part. The Kremlin said that the meeting was not linked to the attacks on data centres. Russia's state RIA Novosti news agency reported in 2024 that the Sberbank centre hit on Wednesday would host Russia's biggest supercomputer, which is scheduled to go into operation in 2027.

The Yandex data centres, hit earlier, hosted all three of that company's operating supercomputers. Neither Yandex nor Sberbank has said whether supercomputers, used to train the AI models, were damaged in the Ukrainian attacks.

Along with Yandex, its main domestic rival, Sberbank is Russia's leading developer of artificial intelligence. The domestic market is shared between Sberbank's GigaChat model and YandexGPT.

DIFFICULTIES PURCHASING CHIPS

Both companies have invested heavily in the development of their models but lag global leaders in the United States and China by up to nine months, according to Sberbank's own estimates, partly due to Western sanctions which hinder Russia's access to the most advanced hardware.

"It's clear what difficulties we face when purchasing modern graphics processing units. Both we and Yandex suffer from this," Gref said on Sep 29, calling it the biggest reason why Russia lags behind the US and China in AI.

Sberbank is in talks to buy chips from Chinese makers, but in an interview with Reuters on Jun 3, Vedyakhin said that US chipmaker Nvidia's NVDA.O monopoly on its CUDA software platform, which has become an AI industry standard, is an even greater problem.

Yandex said previously that its supercomputers operated on Nvidia A100 chips, a model launched in 2020 and since then succeeded by more advanced H100 chips.

Sberbank has two functioning supercomputers. The most advanced one, called Christofari Neo, ranked 167th in the Top 500 list of the world's most powerful supercomputers, is located in Moscow and is based on Nvidia A100 chips.

Yandex's most advanced Chervonenkis supercomputer is ranked 101st in the same list.

IT expert Mikhail Klimarev told Reuters it could take a long time to replace the chips due to Western sanctions, while damage to the supercomputers could set back the Russian AI industry, which already suffered from sanctions.

"The equipment is being imported, but it's done at a high cost, through indirect routes. First, you need to negotiate so that someone is willing to sell it to you and is not afraid of sanctions," he said.

PROTECT ASSETS

Some commentators compared the lack of reported disruption at state-controlled Sberbank with Yandex - whose taxi and food delivery units had reported disruptions - saying it showed that Sberbank's centres are better protected.

"This is a great example of what a business owner can do to protect their assets," wrote military blogger Alexander Kots. Under an August decree by Putin, the state can take over administration of poorly protected facilities.

The Sberbank site is located close to the Balakovo nuclear power plant, which the data centre uses as an energy source, and the Saratov hydroelectric power plant. No damage was reported to either plant from the attack.

Ukraine says it is responding to Russian attacks on its own data sites. Both countries have attacked each other's refineries, power stations, ports and e-commerce companies.

Russia's digital development ministry said this week it was in talks with the military on protecting the data centres, while some lawmakers called for them to be moved underground where the hardware will be out of reach for drones.

"We need a so-called Doomsday data vault," Valery Yermakov, deputy CEO of state-controlled Rostelecom, another major data centre operator, told a conference in Moscow.