Ukraine’s strikes on Russian data centers expose AI’s physical weak point

Ukrainian drone attacks on Russian data centers have highlighted a vulnerability that extends well beyond Russia: the artificial intelligence infrastructure behind cloud services and advanced computing is physically exposed to war. Data centers concentrate valuable equipment in large, immovable facilities that can be difficult to protect and slow to replace, argues Connor Martin, a national security fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.

Martin reports that Ukrainian drones struck three Yandex-owned data centers last week, disrupting services including email, payments and navigation. Yandex is deeply integrated into Russian daily life, he writes. A claim by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy that the strikes also reduced social-media bot activity was disputed, according to Martin.

The attacks are unlikely to shift the global AI race substantially: Russia already trails the United States and China, and faces restrictions on access to advanced chips as well as a shortage of engineers. But the damage could deepen obstacles for Russian AI development. Martin says three Yandex supercomputers at the struck sites run on Nvidia A100 chips that Russia will struggle to replace. Ukraine also hit a Sberbank data center under construction earlier this week, he reports.

The risks are not limited to combatants in Ukraine and Russia. Martin points to Iranian drone strikes in March on two Amazon Web Services data centers in the United Arab Emirates and damage to another in Bahrain. AWS later said it could not restore resources and data held exclusively at two facilities, although most customers were able to resume operations elsewhere using backups or accessible copies.

Data centers are vulnerable not just because of the servers inside them. They rely on power delivery and cooling systems, and damage to any part of that integrated setup can disable a facility. Their size and fixed locations make them difficult to conceal or move, while their dependence on reliable electricity and fiber-optic connections limits where they can be built.

Martin argues that conventional physical-security standards, which focus largely on preventing unauthorized access, do little to counter threats from drones and missiles. He also notes that companies operating in the Gulf cannot guarantee their facilities will avoid future disruption; Iran’s security chief has warned that data centers and connected subsea cables could be targets if fighting resumes.

The practical response, Martin writes, is to build redundancy and resilience rather than assume facilities can be made invulnerable. Data portability and backups in other regions helped Ukrainian providers weather attacks, while Russia’s data-localization rules leave Yandex with fewer options. That contrast, he argues, is worth considering as governments weigh localization policies against the ability to keep services running during a crisis.

Distributing some computing to smaller, local sites could also improve resilience, though Martin cautions that edge computing cannot substitute for the scale required to train advanced AI models or operate supercomputers. Underground or space-based data centers are being explored as alternatives, but he says space facilities remain years from technical or commercial viability and could introduce vulnerabilities of their own.

The attacks do not show that AI development worldwide is about to be derailed. They do underscore that AI depends on ordinary physical infrastructure—servers, electricity, cooling and networks—and that this infrastructure can become a target in conflict. For companies and governments relying on it, the central question is how to keep services operating when a site goes offline.