Power Crisis Forces Russia to Abandon 38 Data Center Builds Worth $2.2B

Russia has frozen the construction of 38 data centers worth 168.6 billion rubles ($2.25B) over the last three years due to a severe lack of financial resources and electricity shortages.

The country currently registers 128 data center construction projects with a total investment volume of 1 trillion rubles ($13.37B). Only 42 projects worth 282 billion rubles ($3.77B) remain under active construction, which include major data facilities owned by Yandex, Sber, DataPro, AFC Sistema, and VK, according to The Moscow Times on June 24.

From May 2023 to May 2026, the number of data center projects in the active construction phase dropped by 41.6%, while total financial investments in them decreased by 26.3%.

General Director of Tekhexpo  Filipp Vratskikh noted, “At the same time, it is not yet clear how to solve the problem of developing an independent AI, the law on which is currently being prepared for adoption.”

Commercial data centers built for selling capacity on the market experience the heaviest pressure, as they remain highly dependent on private investments and loans. Analyst at russian iKS-Consulting Stanislav Mirin pointed out that the central bank interest rate reached 21% in 2025.

Mirin stated, “Now it has decreased to 14.25%, but this is still very much, given that commercial data center projects are designed for a payback period of about ten years, and with such a rate, the business model often simply does not come together.”

Connecting facilities to the electrical grid presents an even more critical challenge, with waiting times now exceeding one year. Mirin emphasized, “In the Moscow region, according to market participants, it is now practically impossible for new investors to obtain such permission.”

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President of Russia's largest provider of digital services Rostelecom Mikhail Oseevsky previously warned that available electrical capacity in major Russian cities is almost completely depleted.

According to him, this situation already restricts the construction of new data centers and blocks the large-scale implementation of artificial intelligence solutions. According to the General Scheme for the Development of Russian Energy until 2042, Moscow faces a power deficit of 1.6 GW by 2030, which is projected to grow to 4.2 GW by 2042.

The Russian economy faced significant challenges as growth slowed sharply to approximately 1% last year, down from 4.9% in 2024, and the country’s GDP shrank by 0.2% during the first quarter of 2026. Officials attributed this contraction to a combination of high interest rates, Western sanctions, and a strong ruble, while the official growth forecast for the year remained at a modest 0.4%.

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