Sberbank Develops Domestic Cloud To Address Computing Problems Affected By Western Sanctions

JAKARTA – Russia's leading creditor bank, Sberbank, is developing a completely domestic cloud infrastructure. This announcement came on Friday, May 6, after they reported problems with some functions of their 'smart home' devices due to issues with their foreign cloud partners.

The state-owned lender, which is also subject to Western sanctions over Russia's invasion of Ukraine, has grown its non-financial businesses, including cloud technology and services. This was done in an effort to combat the trend of shrinking margins across the industry.

Despite public assurances that the sanctions had a limited effect on its operations, the bank began reporting problems in the functioning of smart home devices, such as lights and sockets, in mid-April.

But other Gadgets, including TV streaming devices and high-end smart speakers, still work as usual.

SberDevices on Thursday, May 5 blamed the problem on the cloud infrastructure provided by the partner, later renamed Tuya, China's Internet of Things cloud platform.

"We created a hybrid solution based on Tuya's own cloud platform and infrastructure," a SberDevices representative told reporters.

"At the same time we have developed an autonomous solution and now we continue active work on an infrastructure completely independent of foreign services, based on our own cloud," said a Sberbank spokesman.

Tuya did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Russia's foreign ministry last week acknowledged the secondary action risk Chinese companies could face if they helped Russia evade sanctions. But they said they still expect cooperation between the two countries to increase.

Sberbank said the upgrade would include having SberCloud servers located in different regions across Russia.

With limited access to already strained global supply chains, Russia has stepped up efforts to develop its domestic technology industry, to better protect itself from hardware or software shortages.

Sberbank said it was continuing to work on resolving the issue and had advised retailers to suspend sales of smart home devices for now.