Russian data center firm Key Point has broken ground on a new data center in Novosibirsk in Siberia.
The company has also received planning permission for a second facility in Primorsky Krai, and signed telco Rostelecom as a partner for an upcoming facility on the Russian island of Sakhalin.
Key Point breaks ground in Novosibirsk, gets permission to expand in Primorsky Krai
Key Point this month broke ground on a new data center in Novosibirsk. The data center, being developed in partnership with local telco and anchor tenant Vimpelcom/Beeline, is set to launch in December 2023.
At full build-out, the Tier III quality facility will offer 8MW. First announced in 2022, the first phase will offer 440 racks, with the second phase adding the same again. The general designer and contractor of the facility is Free Technologies Engineering, with technical consulting provided by DC Square.
Maxim Sharkov, regional director of the Eastern region of Beeline, said: “With the opening of a data center of this level in Novosibirsk, digital services will become more accessible for residents of the region, their quality will increase, and the process of launching new services will significantly accelerate. The opening of the data center in Novosibirsk will be an important step not only towards improving the service of our subscribers, but will also increase the security of data storage and processing, which is extremely important in modern realities. I am sure that the regional business will also highly appreciate the possibility of placing their infrastructure on the basis of the data center.”
Evgeny Virtser, co-founder of Key Point, added: “The data center in Novosibirsk will be the second major project implemented as part of the program to build a network of data centers of the Key Point group of companies.”
Beeline and PJSC VimpelCom were both subsidiaries of the Veon Group of companies until recently. In the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the Amsterdam-based parent company recently sold Veon’s Russian operations to certain senior members of the management team of PJSC VimpelCom, led by its current CEO Aleksander Torbakhov.
Key Point is a franchise partner of Russian data center firm 3data; the company recently said it is planning to build 35 data centers over the next five years in all major regions of Russia. It is planning data centers with a capacity of 400-1200 racks in Vladivostok, Novosibirsk, Yekaterinburg, Nizhny Novgorod, and Stavropol. Data centers with 30-400 racks capacity will be built in 30 more cities across Russia.
Key Point and Beeline also partner on projects in Vladivostok, Primorsky Krai, and Yekaterinburg, Sverdlovsk Oblast.
This month the company gained permission for a second data center module at its campus in Primorsky Krai. The commissioning of the second stage of the data center is scheduled for Q1 2024. The general designer and contractor of the facility will again be Free Technologies Engineering, with technical consulting provided by DC Square.
First announced in September 2021, the first 440-rack module opened in February 2023. At full build-out, the facility will feature the capacity for 880 racks and 10MW.
Key Point and Rostelecom partner for Sakhalin data center
Key Point has partnered with Rostelecom for a new data center on Sakhalin, an island off the east coast of Russia, north of Japan.
In September 2022, Key Point signed an agreement with Sakhalin Oblast Governor Valery Igorevich to build a data center in the Sakhalin Region. At the time, details around precise location, specifications, or timelines were not shared.
This month, Key Point announced it has signed an agreement with Rostelecom for the development of information and telecommunication infrastructure in the Sakhalin region.
The company said a 100-rack, 850kW Tier III data center would be built on the island by the end of 2023, with Rostelecom as a tenant of the new facility.
“The Sakhalin project will become one of the important stages in the creation of a regional network of Key Point data processing centers. The appearance in the Key Point data center of a full-fledged communication center of PJSC Rostelecom demonstrates the high level of confidence of one of the largest telecom operators in the quality of the infrastructure that we provide to our customers,” said Key Point’s Evgeny Virtser.
Andrey Sun, director of the Sakhalin branch of PJSC Rostelecom, added: “The launch of the new site is a response to requests from Sakhalin Oblast clients to place information systems in the cloud. The digital partnership of our companies will allow us to provide a reliable and secure platform for the development of digital projects.”