Russia is building a massive, nuclear-powered data center

Russia’s decision to force foreign companies like Facebook and Google to store the data they have on Russian citizens within Russia’s borders is actually an excellent business opportunity for local companies. As a nation of more than 143 million people, there’s no way these companies are going to ignore such a massive market, which means they have to start investing in Russian data centers in order to comply with these new laws, and that’s where Rosenergoatom comes in. The Russian company has started building a nuclear-powered data center, expected to be the a largest in Russia, in the town of Udomlya, which will not only help foreign companies comply with the new laws, but will be able to burn through any of  the excess power that the nearby nuclear power plant generates. 

Russian nuclear power specialist Rosenergoatom has started construction of a massive data center that will serve an existing nuclear power station in the north of the country. Once complete, the facility in the town of Udomlya could become Russia’s largest data center, consuming up to 80MW to power up to 10,000 racks. According to the Russian news agency Telecom Daily, around 10 percent of the data center capacity has been reserved for the state-owned company, while the rest will be available to commercial customers. Rosenergoatom has previously approached Facebook and Google to offer space on the upcoming campus, in order to help the American companies comply with new data residency laws that require all foreign firms to store Russian citizens’ data on Russian soil. Rosenergoatom currently operates ten nuclear power plants with 33 reactors, and plans to increase the number of reactors to 59 by 2030. To support this expansion, the company has started building a large data center next to the Kalinin nuclear power station in Udomlya – a facility that produces a total of 4000MW across four power blocks. Naturally, the new data center will feed on nuclear energy. According to an earlier report in Vedomosti, management of Rosenergoatom had to negotiate changes to the rules governing power prices in order to directly connect the upcoming server farm and the power plant, enabling the utility company to offer preferential electricity rates on the site.