The electricity consumption of data centers and mining farms in Russia continues to increase sharply. Currently, the load from data centers, including mining, already reaches 4 GW – about 2% of the country's total energy consumption.
According to estimates by the Ministry of Digital Development, by 2030, data centers will require at least an additional 2 GW of capacity. The largest electricity consumers could be the data centers of Yandex and Sberbank.
The load is growing particularly rapidly in the central part of Russia – primarily in Moscow and the Moscow region. In the winter of 2025–2026, the unified energy system of the Center set a new consumption record: 43.3 GW. Of this, more than 21 GW accounted for the capital region.
The System Operator fears that the uncontrolled growth of mining and energy-intensive computing could begin to hinder the connection of new enterprises and economic development. Already, existing data centers in the Central energy system occupy about 1.3 GW of capacity, and another 1.6 GW accounts for future projects that have already received connection agreements.
Against this background, new restrictions for mining and large data centers are being discussed. One possible option is to oblige data center owners to independently participate in the construction of new energy infrastructure and reserve capacities.
Experts warn that without rapid expansion of the energy system, demand from AI, mining, and cloud services will grow faster than the capabilities of power grids.