Over the past six months, the number of accidents in data centers built 10–15 years ago has increased dramatically in Russia. The problem has affected 20% of the country's commercial data centers, RBC reports, citing market experts. Equipment is massively failing due to the end of its life cycle, problems with the supply of foreign components, and the lack of warehouse stocks. The situation is aggravated by savings on maintenance and cuts in budgets for planned infrastructure modernization. There were no such “outbreaks” of accidents until the second half of 2025. At the same time, major players — RTK‑TsOD and Sber — say they have found analogues and are maintaining the equipment as usual.
Growth in accidents and aging data center infrastructure
According to experts, companies have faced a sharp increase in the number of accidents in local data centers and small data centers over the past six months. Experts confirm the problem of aging engineering infrastructure. There were no such “outbreaks” until the second half of 2025.
The reasons given are:
- end of the standard service life of equipment (10–15 years);
- the departure of foreign vendors from the Russian market;
- lack of warehouse stocks and difficulties with parallel imports;
- accumulation of technological debts due to savings on service;
- lack of funds for planned modernization.
At the same time, RTK‑TsOD stated that they had found available analogues and were not experiencing any problems. Sber also assured that the equipment in their data centers was operating normally and was being serviced in a timely manner.
However, according to experts, the problem of mass failure of old systems exists and affects a significant proportion of commercial data centers, especially small and local ones.
The mass failure of equipment in data centers built 10–15 years ago creates risks for businesses that rent racks or use cloud services on such capacities. Sudden accidents can lead to data loss, downtime of critical services, and additional costs for emergency repairs. For the Russian digital infrastructure, this means that about a fifth of commercial data centers need urgent modernization or equipment replacement.