Russian hosting provider RUVDS is to deliver a server to the South Pole.
The company recently announced the chilly move, where it will test the possibility of installing a high-speed communication channel alongside the server. The experiment is planned for 2025.
The server will be insulated from the extreme cold through weather-resistant equipment. The presence of backup power supplies, as well as the provision of an uninterruptible and high-speed communication channel, will reportedly allow the hosting provider to provide access to the ‘Antarctic data center’ to any user.
RUVDS is studying several options for delivering the equipment to Antarctica, including via a transport plane or by ship.
"We already have a successful experience of test launching a server at the North Pole - this was a kind of first approach to testing. And Antarctica, as a region with much more complex logistics and conditions, allows us to continue research at a new level. As part of the mission, the possibility of establishing satellite communications, including high-speed channels, will be studied, and I do not rule out that we will carry out a kind of beta test of commercial use of the server," emphasized Nikita Tsaplin, CEO of the VDS server hosting provider RUVDS.
RUVDS is a major Russian VPS/VDS server hosting provider. The company operates one data center in in Korolev near Moscow, that launched in 2016 in partnership with Huawei; it also has a presence in 14 colocation data centers across Russia, Turkey, Germany, Switzerland, the Netherlands, UK, and Kazakhstan.
The company previously delivered a server to the Arctic. Earlier this year, the company announced it would deliver a ‘data center in a box’ to the Barneo Ice Camp via an air drop from an Ilyushin Il-76 aircraft.
Barneo Ice Camp is a Swiss-owned and Swiss-operated drift station (a temporary or semi-permanent facility built on an ice floe) on the frozen Arctic Ocean near the North Pole catering to tourists flown in from Russia. It is open for around a month around April every year.
The server was dropped onto the ice in April early, turned and connected to VDS’ own satellite, which launched last year. Despite planning to run the server for a month, the project ended after a week after an emergency evacuation of the camp due to a crack in the ice.
The company's StratoSat TK-1 satellite is a Low Earth Orbit pico-satellite launched in June 2023 in partnership with Statonautica. Its memory moduled was damaged during the machine’s launch, but it is still operational. The company bills the machine as the first hosting satellite in space, as it broadcasts a HTML page.
Another satellite is due for launch in partnership with Russian small-satellite maker OKB Fifth Generation later this year or early next year.
The company previously launched a server in a hot air balloon in 2018, and attached a server to a stratospheric balloon in 2019 that reached an altitude of 22km.
