Russia's MegaFon has launched a data center in St. Petersburg, Russia.

A press release issued on October 9 by the telco giant states that the data center, constituting two buildings, was built using modular technology and is able to accommodate over 800 racks with a total capacity of up to 14MW.

St. Petersburg is a port city located in northern Russia on the Baltic Sea. In June of this year, a series of data center investments across the country were announced at a forum hosted in the city.

The company has referred to the data center as its largest site for hosting its network infrastructure.

CTO Alexey Titov said that the company had used as much Russian-made equipment as possible, adding that it was particularly proud of its “domestically produced climate control equipment, which is no way inferior to its international counterparts in terms of energy efficiency.

“Moreover, we are constantly increasing our import substitution efforts, which stimulates development for local developers and manufacturers and strengthens the technological sovereignty of the industry.”

Russia has pursued import substitution – the process of replacing imported goods with domestic ones – in response to sanctions imposed on the country following its invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Technological exports have suffered in particular.

MegaFon was disconnected from the London Internet Exchange in March 2022 and was sanctioned by the EU and the US in the following year, preventing the export of various goods and services to the company. MegaFon also found itself subject to a cyberattack in January of this year from Ukraine’s defense ministry, which temporarily disabled Internet access to its customers.

In July of this year, the company expanded its data center portfolio by adding two facilities in the cities of Yekaterinburg and Tver.