AI and “Alice” fails: “Yandex” revealed the result of data center attacks in neighboring Tula regions

The work of the voice assistant “Alice” and related neural network services was disrupted due to damage to the server infrastructure of “Yandex”. The reason was drone attacks on the company’s data centers – first in Sasovo (Ryazan region), then in Kaluga – in the neighboring regions of the Tula region.

On October 8, Yandex notified about the emergency in Sasovo: as a result of the strike, a fire broke out at the facility, because of which its work was completely suspended. This immediately affected the stability of a number of Russian digital services. On the morning of October 9, the company reported damage to part of the infrastructure of the Kaluga data center after another drone attack. According to the head of the Kaluga region Vladislav Shapshi, during the night in the region managed to shoot down 26 UAVs.

The team of “Alice” in its Telegram channel explained that the functionality of AI assistants directly depends on access to computing clusters in data centers. While specialists restore the functionality of systems, users may face a number of restrictions. In particular, in chat with Alice, some AI functions are temporarily unavailable, and neural network responses can be formed longer than usual. On smart speakers, delays before response and failures in individual options are possible. In addition, some devices in the smart home ecosystem may be unstable.

In an appeal to users and employees, Yandex figuratively called data centers the “iron heart” of the company: it is on their uninterrupted operation that services that are firmly embedded in the daily lives of millions of people depend. Representatives of the company stressed that the teams work around the clock to return services to normal mode as soon as possible.

To reduce downtime, Yandex has agreed with a number of cloud providers – Selectel, K2Cloud and VK Cloud – to accelerate the placement of Yandex Cloud data and services. This measure is designed to reduce the burden on affected sites and minimize disruption for users.

Earlier, “MK in Tula” wrote that over the Tula region put out of action 5 UAVs of Ukraine on Saturday morning.