Ukrainian drone strikes cripple Russian AI supercomputers and digital services

Ukrainian drone strikes on Russian data centers have disrupted digital services used by millions, including taxi, banking, and email, while also damaging supercomputers vital to the military's AI development. The attacks target Russia's ambition to match US and Chinese artificial intelligence capabilities. On October 14, a drone hit a Sber-owned data center in Balakovo housing Russia's most powerful supercomputer, slated for operation next year. Between October 8 and 11, three Yandex data centers near Moscow were also struck, damaging all of the company's supercomputers. Experts say repairs will be slow due to Western sanctions. The strikes have caused widespread outages in Yandex's taxi monopoly, payment services, and cloud storage, plus Sber's online banking. Russia's centralized digital infrastructure under state-linked firms like Yandex has proven vulnerable, prompting President Putin to hold a crisis meeting on information security.