Ukrainian drones hit Russia's top data centre in attack on AI ambitions
The attack follows a series of Ukrainian strikes on Russian data centres.
On Wednesday, Ukrainian drones targeted Russia's largest data center owned by Sberbank, a major Russian bank and technology company. This attack is part of a series of strikes aimed at disrupting Russia's ambitions to develop AI capabilities comparable to those of the US and China. The Balakovo data center, which houses Russia's biggest supercomputer scheduled to operate in 2027, was hit in the latest assault.
Despite the attack, Sberbank reported that all its systems and services were functioning normally without disruption. Russian President Vladimir Putin held an unannounced meeting with top officials on information security, with Sberbank CEO German Gref in attendance, but the Kremlin dismissed the meeting as unrelated to the attacks.
Neither Sberbank nor Yandex, the other major Russian AI developer hit earlier, has disclosed whether their supercomputers, used to train AI models, were damaged in the Ukrainian strikes. Sberbank and Yandex, Russia's leading AI developers, are struggling to compete with US and Chinese counterparts due to Western sanctions limiting access to advanced hardware.
CEO Gref attributed Russia's lag in AI development to the difficulty in purchasing modern graphics processing units, particularly the monopoly of Nvidia's CUDA software platform by US chipmaker Nvidia, which is crucial for AI operations. Yandex uses Nvidia A100 chips, while Sberbank's Christofari Neo supercomputer, ranked 167th globally, also uses these chips.
IT expert Mikhail Klimarev warned that replacing these chips may take a long time due to Western sanctions, potentially setting back the Russian AI industry already affected by sanctions.
Written by urgent.news from Channel News Asia's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
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