Russian IT integrator Lanit has formed a new data center joint venture with a local real estate firm.

C.News and TAdvisor report the company recently became the controlling shareholder in a new legal entity dedicated to data centers.

A subsidiary of Lanit this month created a company called Astar Data; 51 percent of the new firm belongs to Lanit Data Processing Centers LLC, and 49 percent is owned by Aikom LLC.

Local press suggests the new unit is planning to develop a data center, but no details have been shared and the companies involved haven’t provided any more information.

Aikom is owned by the general director of the Cypriot Riverstretch Trading & Investments, which controls Moscow office owner, O1 Properties.

Ilya Ostapolets, previously technical director at local data center operator Avantahe (later acquired by MTS), has been appointed general director of Astar Data.

Founded in 1989, Lanit (Laboratory of New Information Technologies) is one of the largest system integrators in Russia, offering IT services via dozens of subsidiaries.

Lanit has reportedly been involved with plans for a Huawei data center in Siberia back in 2015.

In 2017, the company said it received Uptime Tier III certification for a 2.3MW data center at the Zhigulevskaya Dolina technology park in Tolyatti, in the Samara region of Russia.

In 2019, Lanit subsidiary Insystems and Instradigital announced plans for a large data center campus in Moscow that was due to start operations this year. Insystems was selected as general contractor for the project.

Lanit has previously partnered with Yandex for the production of OpenYard servers.

According to S&P Global, Riverstretch is affiliated with Russian investment company Region, which in turn is a minority shareholder at Credit Bank of Moscow. It acquired O1 Properties in 2018.