Russian data center firm Key Point has announced plans for a new facility in Yekaterinburg, with telco Beeline as the anchor tenant.

Key Point said the 3,200 sqm (34,450 sq ft) data center will be built inside an existing building and will be constructed with the aim of achieving Tier III certification. General contractor and designer Free Technologies Engineering have begun the design process; the 300-rack facility will offer up to 4MW and is scheduled to launch in December 2023.

A second release announced that the facility is to be developed in partnership with Russian telco PJSC VimpelCom (Beeline) that will see the company be the data center’s anchor tenant.

This will be the third such agreement between the two companies, following similar announcements in Vladivostok in Primorsky Krai and Novosibirsk.

First announced in 2021, the modular facility in Vladivostok will be deployed on a 2-hectare site in two phases with a total capacity of 880 IT racks and 10MW. The commissioning of the first 440-rack, 4MW stage is scheduled for the end of 2022 and will cover 2,200 sqm (23,680 sq ft). In September 2022 Beeline announced it will lease a “significant amount” of the new facility.

The Novosibirsk facility, announced last year, will be built in two phases, both consisting of 4MW and 440 racks. Again built with general contractor Free with the aim of achieving Tier III certification, the commissioning of the facility is scheduled for December 2023.

Valery Shorzhin, Executive Vice President for Technology at PJSC VimpelCom, said: “The signing of an agreement on the construction of a data center in Yekaterinburg with Key Point Group is the next step in implementing the strategy of regional data centers. It covers our needs and the needs of our customers in the Urals. A large number of industries and companies are concentrated in these cities, which are beginning to actively use cloud technologies. We are moving to a regional data center model not only to centralize our internal infrastructure, but also to increase reliability and reduce costs.”

Beeline and VimpelCom PJSC 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.

Alexander Martynyuk, General Director of Key Point Group, added: “Creating a high-quality data center in the region is a much more difficult task than in Moscow. We are confident that we will solve this problem in Vladivostok. The time has come to transfer the experience gained to new regional data centers.”

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 a capacity of 30-400 racks will be built in 30 more cities across Russia.

Evgeny Virtser, General Director of Key Point: “For us, VimpelCom is both a reliable partner and a competent demanding client. Cooperation with him gives us not only tangible benefits in terms of preparing the site for the construction of a data center, but also allows us to get the necessary guidelines first-hand for more efficient operation of the commissioned facilities.”

Rostelecom operates a 4MW data center in Yekaterinburg that opened in 2019 and expanded in 2021. The company is also planning a backup facility for the local government there.

In May 2022 MTS announced plans for a facility in Yekaterinburg.