At a closed meeting held in November 2026, Minister of Digital Development Maksut Shadayev warned commercial data center market participants about the possible introduction of a mandatory capacity reserve. According to Vedomosti and RBC, data center owners may be ordered to disconnect "non-priority" clients to free up 10% of computing capacities and floor space for the operation of services included in the so-called "white lists". These lists typically include state information systems, critical infrastructure, and priority digital services that must remain operational under emergency conditions or external pressure.
Decree of November 2: The Legal Basis for Reservation
The direct legal basis for such requirements was a decree signed by President Vladimir Putin on November 2, 2026. The document obliges private data processing centers to reserve 10% of their capacities and space for provision upon the demand of state authorities. Thus, what sounded like a warning at the closed meeting already has regulatory backing. The Ministry of Digital Development confirmed to journalists that specific mechanisms for implementing the decree are at the drafting stage, and a special sub-commission on the uninterrupted operation of IT facilities and communications will be created under the government commission on digital development to discuss them in detail.
Temporary Administration as a Tool of Pressure
Special attention should be paid to the wording voiced at the meeting: if a data center refuses to comply with the reservation requirement, temporary administration may be introduced against it. In Russian practice, this legal instrument often precedes the complete nationalization of a business — that is, the forced transfer of assets into state ownership. For the commercial data center market, where a significant share of capacity belongs to private operators, such a statement sounds like a direct warning about the risk of losing control over the infrastructure. Experts note that in an environment where data centers are becoming targets of attacks and critical infrastructure simultaneously, the state gains an additional argument for tightening control over the sector.
Context: Infrastructure Strikes and Massive Failures
The decision to reserve capacities is being made against the backdrop of a series of incidents involving attacks on Russian IT infrastructure. Over recent weeks, according to available data, Ukrainian unmanned aerial vehicles have struck the data centers of Yandex, Sber, and VK at least five times. Each of these incidents led to massive service disruptions across the country — from search engines and cloud platforms to taxi-hailing applications and banking services. According to the regulator's logic, these very events justify the creation of a guaranteed reserve that will allow restoring or redirecting the load to priority services in the event of a repeated attack.
What This Means for the Market
The introduction of a mandatory 10% reserve and the threat of temporary administration form a new level of regulatory pressure on the commercial data center sector. Operators who previously could independently determine their capacity utilization and commercial terms for clients now have an obligation primarily to ensure the operation of "white lists". For clients not belonging to priority categories, this means the risk of forced disconnection or service degradation during periods of high load or emergencies. The creation of the sub-commission under the government commission signals that specific criteria for classifying services into "white lists", the procedure for calculating the reserve, and execution control mechanisms will be developed in the coming months. The market is essentially moving from a model of free commercial use of infrastructure to a model where the state establishes the right of priority access and forced seizure of part of the capacities.
