Yandex unable to confirm if Sasovo data centre can be restored after drone strike

Russian tech firm Yandex says it cannot yet determine if equipment at its Sasovo data centre, hit by a Ukrainian drone attack, can be restored. The facility, which houses tens of thousands of servers and two of three supercomputers used for AI development, remains suspended after a fire.

MOSCOW, Oct 8 — Russian technology and AI company Yandex said on Thursday it could not yet determine whether equipment at a data centre hit by a Ukrainian drone attack could be restored.

Yandex said earlier that the attack on its Sasovo hub, one of its five large data centres, caused a fire and forced it to suspend operations at the site, which hosts tens of thousands of servers.

“The scale of the damage to the infrastructure is still being assessed,” Yandex said in a statement. “For the moment, we cannot confirm whether it is possible to restore the data centre equipment in Sasovo.”

The company earlier said some of its services were unavailable and specialist teams were at the site assessing the damage.

Two of Yandex’s three supercomputers, used to develop its AI model, are housed at the Sasovo data centre. Yandex has not said whether they were damaged.