Digital investments take center stage
A series of data center investments have been announced during a Russian economic forum.
The announcements were made during the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, held between 18 and 21 June. An annual event, the conference is attended by a domestic and international audience.
Intelion, a Russian data center operator and crypto miner, announced on June 19 that its facility in Samara Oblast, which is located southeast of Moscow and borders Kazakhstan to its south, had become operational. It simultaneously operates as a colocation data center and a crypto mining facility.
The company has already invested 1bn rubles ($15.3m) into the data center, with the total amount set to increase to 12bn rubles ($153m) in the future.
The data center currently offers 24MW of capacity, but will offer 100MW at full buildout. That buildout will involve the installation of 750 Nvidia H100 chips.
MegaFon, the Russian telco giant, announced that a 5MW data center is being constructed in the southern city of Novosibirsk, Novosibirsk Oblast. According to Kommersant, the facility can be scaled up to 20MW.
The exact location is unclear, but CEO Khachatur Pombukhchan said that the facility would be located within an industrial and logistics park.
A data center was also announced by the Governor of Kurgan Oblast Vadim Shumkov.
As reported by Ura.ru, the facility will be located in the district of Zaozerny. Shumkov said that around 1bn rubles ($12.7m) would be invested in an IT park, which will be the site of the data center. Details about size and capacity were not made available.
Shumkov told the Russian state news agency TASS that the park’s design would be complete by December, and that a tender for construction would be announced immediately after.
Timelines for the data center itself were not announced, but the IT park is set to be completed by July 2027.
