Chips & Supply · United States

Ukrainian drones hit Russia's Yandex data centers housing two top supercomputers

Credited to Tom's Hardware · tomshardware.com · 16h ago

Photograph · Tom's Hardware

Ukrainian drones hit a major Yandex data center in Sasovo, Russia, causing a massive fire and forcing the company to shut down the facility, according to Reuters and Meduza. Many services using Yandex Cloud are down following the attack. The site reportedly houses two of Yandex's three supercomputers used for artificial intelligence development, though it remains unclear whether the systems sustained any damage, as for now their fate is unclear. Russian missiles struck Ukrainian digital infrastructure earlier this month.

The Sasovo facility, one of Yandex's five major data centers, accommodates tens of thousands of servers, including two Nvidia A100-based supercomputers named Chervonenkis and Lyapunov. Chervonenkis, the company's most powerful system, was once ranked as the world's 19 th most powerful supercomputer in the Top 500 list in 2021, but by today's standards its 21.53 FP64 PFLOPS is enough only for the 101 st place in the list. Due to Western sanctions, Yandex can no longer upgrade the system. Both machines have been used to train AI models, including YandexGPT, Russia's leading large language model. Yandex's third supercomputer, Galushkin, is located in Vladimir.

So far, the company has not disclosed whether its supercomputers were affected by the strike, though judging by the massive fire caused by the drone incident, the systems' chances of survival are low. The potential damage to Nvidia-powered computing infrastructure could be extremely painful for Russia's AI industry, which is already constrained by restrictions on exports of advanced AI accelerators and servers to Russia. If the machines are indeed destroyed or damaged, many of its elements may be lost forever, and Yandex will be forced to use Chinese infrastructure for future model training.

The attack also disrupted Yandex Cloud infrastructure, so the company is recommending customers use alternative zones. Although Yandex claims that its key consumer services remained operational, users reported problems with Yandex Mail, Disk, Documents, Pay, and Market. Other affected services reportedly included Cian, Litmarket, Russian Railways, Spartak Moscow, cryptocurrency exchange Rapira, Astral, and the 1C business solutions. Corporate systems operated by T-Bank, Ozon, and Wildberries also experienced disruptions, according to Meduza. A Moscow-region bus operator suspended online ticket sales, while Detector404 registered 58,268 complaints over 24 hours. Many Russian media outlets, including state propaganda RIA Novosti, Vesti, and Interfax, were also down following the attack on 'infrastructure partner,' reports RBC.

It is noteworthy that the Yandex data center occupies former premises of the Sasta machine-tool factory, where Yandex established operations in 2014. Sasta manufactures industrial equipment supplied to various Russian manufacturers, including defense-related enterprises, and is therefore under Western sanctions. Regional authorities reported a fire at an industrial facility following the attack, but it remains unknown whether the intended target was the factory or Yandex's computing infrastructure. Still, no matter the target, Ukraine's sanctions against Russia's economy and military complex seem to be generally more efficient than those imposed by the West.

The incident follows Russian strikes against Ukrainian telecommunications and computing facilities. Since September 23, attacks have damaged or destroyed data centers that belong to at least eight Ukrainian companies, including Virtual Systems, MiroHost, CosmoNova, DataGroup, and CityHost. Among other websites, popular torrent trackers 1337x and NordicQuality temporarily went offline after servers that hosted them were damaged.

Ukraine is consequently moving some digital infrastructure underground, while Russian businesses are discussing deployments in countries considered friendly by Moscow, which is probably limited to just a few states, including China.

Power & SitesUnited States

Nvidia-Backed Lumentum Sees Opto-Parts Capacity Sold Out to 2029

Credited to Bloomberg$ · bloomberg.com6h ago

Useful

Lumentum Holdings Inc.’s optoelectronic parts are “completely sold out” through almost 2029 on demand from tech companies clamoring for faster AI data centers.

View the article · $Bloomberg

Front Method

Chips & Supply · United States

Ripple is earning fees financing leveraged stock bets, a business long run by banks

Credited to CoinDesk · coindesk.com · 1d ago

Photograph · CoinDesk

The crypto company's $1.25 billion acquisition of Hidden Road has opened a corner of Wall Street where funds pay to amplify daily moves in stocks such as Nvidia and Sandisk.

Ripple is expanding into the business of financing leveraged stock exchange-traded funds, putting the crypto company in a market long dominated by major banks and securities firms.

Its prime brokerage division, Ripple Prime, is supplying financing for funds that let investors multiply the daily moves of individual stocks and market indexes, according to a Wall Street Journal report Wednesday.

Ripple entered the business through its $1.25 billion acquisition of Hidden Road, a multi-asset prime brokerage firm, in October 2025. The deal gave Ripple an established operation that clears trades, finances investment positions and handles transactions across stocks, bonds, currencies and digital assets.

A fund promising twice the daily return of Nvidia can enter into a financial contract called a total return swap rather than buying twice its assets in Nvidia shares. A broker provides the exposure, typically hedging its own risk through stock purchases or other trades, while collecting a financing fee from the fund.

The Journal reported that the Tradr 2X Long SNDK Daily ETF, which targets twice the daily movement of memory-chip maker Sandisk, pays Ripple the overnight bank funding rate — a benchmark for what banks pay to borrow overnight — plus four percentage points.

That puts the annualized financing rate at roughly 8% at prevailing rates, charged on the swap exposure and separate from the ETF's management fee.

The U.S. market now has 593 leveraged ETFs holding more than $256 billion, including 426 funds tracking individual stocks, according to Morningstar Direct data.

Banks have traditionally supplied much of this financing, but tighter capital and risk requirements have created openings for nonbank firms including Ripple Prime, Jane Street and Clear Street.

Ripple launched its Delta One business in August, offering total return swaps tied to U.S. stocks, market indexes and digital assets. It said at the time the operation had more than $1 billion in regulatory net capital, and it had completed a $275 million senior debt offering to help finance further growth.

Meanwhile, the company announced an expanded agreement on Tuesday with hedge fund manager Brevan Howard, under which Ripple Prime will provide brokerage, clearing and financing services across multiple asset classes.

Leveraged ETFs reset their exposure daily, and sharp moves in individual stocks can leave financing firms exposed if a fund's assets are insufficient to cover losses.

The business gives Ripple fee income tied to stock trading and institutional financing. As such, the company has still not disclosed how much revenue its leveraged ETF financing generates or how much of that activity uses XRP or the XRP Ledger.

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