Russian state-owned gas company Gazprom has launched a pilot project with cryptocurrency firm Crypto Energy to power a modular data center site behind the meter using natural gas.

The project will be located in the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug region, in northwestern Siberia. According to local reports, the modular data center will utilize gas from the depleted Medvezhye gas field.

"Residual reserves of depleted fields in the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug are becoming a profitable resource base for prospective data centers. Due to low reservoir pressure, it's more rational to use such reserves near production sites for energy-intensive data processing facilities," the companies said in a statement.

According to the partners, Crypto Energy will construct the modular data center and a gas piston power plant, which will directly power it. Gazprom will in turn provide low-pressure gas to the facility, with the local regional government assisting computing capacity owners in obtaining government support.

"In addition to using low-pressure gas, Gazprom's project portfolio includes providing its own spare power generation capacity at fields for the creation of data centers in Russian regions. Specifically, such a project has been implemented at the Bovanenkovo ​​field," Gazprom added.

The project comes shortly after the Russian government banned Bitcoin mining in Moscow and the surrounding region to ease pressure on the country’s ailing power grid.

At present, cryptocurrency mining reportedly consumes approximately 1GW of power in Moscow alone, with projections of up to 3.6GW by 2032, representing 17 percent of peak electricity demand for the entire grid.

The ban did not impact cryptocurrency mining in the Siberian and eastern territories, where the cost of energy is significantly cheaper, with the Gazprom project as evidence of this.