Drone strikes on five Russian data centers hit Yandex AI supercomputers

Over ten days, Ukrainian drones struck five Russian data centers, including Yandex's Sasovo site that housed two of its three AI supercomputers built on Nvidia A100 chips. Sanctions make replacing the hardware difficult, delaying recovery of Russia's AI infrastructure.

• Yandex sites in Sasovo, Kaluga and Vladimir were hit, along with Sberbank and VK facilities
• Sasovo housed two of Yandex's three AI supercomputers, one ranked 19th worldwide
• Sanctions limit Nvidia A100 supplies, slowing restoration of AI compute
• Outages affected taxi, banking, navigation services and arbitration courts