2023-04-12 00:09:11
In the spring of 2023, the State Duma may finally adopt the draft law of the Ministry of Digital Development, developed back in 2021, which introduces the concept of data centers (data processing centers, data centers) into the legal field, two sources close to companies in the industry told Vedomosti. A source close to the government specified that the second reading of the bill in the Duma will take place in April. “The bill is being finalized in the State Duma Committee on Information Policy with the participation of the Ministry of Digital Development,” the source said. Vedomosti sent a request to this committee and the Ministry of Digital Development.
The ministry developed a bill providing for fixing the definitions of data centers and their operators in the legislation back in 2021. The ministry submitted the relevant amendments to the law “On Communications” to the State Duma in June 2021, and in April 2022 the bill was adopted in the first reading.
Initially, the draft law on the status of data centers was developed so that the centers could gain access to electricity on preferential terms in the future. It is energy supply that accounts for a significant part of the costs of data centers. The bill was developed on the instructions of the President of the Russian Federation of July 3, 2020, which provided for the provision of preferential access to the energy market for such organizations.
In the current version of the draft law, the DPC is designated as “a communication facility with a complex of engineering and technical support systems designed and used to accommodate equipment that provides data processing and storage.” The amendments also provide for the definition of a “data center operator” as a “legal entity, individual entrepreneur, state authority or local government that provides services for placing equipment in the data center that provides processing and (or) storage of data, and (or) uses the data center owned by it for its own needs or providing powers of state authorities, local self-government”.
The explanatory note states that in the future, data centers that are now telecom operators will be able to refuse licenses for the provision of telecom services and receive their own foreign economic activity code (OKVED). The operator will also be obliged to provide information on technological capabilities, technical condition, prospects for the development of facilities and communication networks, tariffs and conditions for the provision of services, including services for connection and traffic transmission. We are talking about fixing the obligation of data center operators to provide access to stored data and report to the authorized bodies not only on the technical characteristics and capacities of data centers, but also, for example, on tariffs.
According to Vedomosti’s source in one of the data center operators, the second and third readings of the bill should pass one after another, since the key parameters have already been enshrined in the draft law. Dmitry Bederdinov, CEO of the Coordinating Council for Data Centers and Cloud Technologies, does not expect fundamental changes in the bill.
The acceleration of the movement of the bill is due to the fact that the industry is counting on determining the legal status of data centers and a clear identification can guarantee access to a number of benefits that IT industry companies already have (for example, preferential loans and armor for company specialists), the source of Vedomosti specified in one of the data center operators. Support from the state could solve problems with the construction of data centers and the commissioning of facilities amid delays in the supply of computing power, he said.
After the adoption of changes to the law, the data center industry will be able to discuss possible support measures, continues Bederdinov. Due to the long payback period of projects (from seven years), it is especially important to stimulate the development of infrastructure. “DPCs are an integral part of the functioning of any ICT services (in the field of information and communication technologies), so the owners and operators of DPCs naturally count on the benefits provided for IT companies,” he says. But benefits are not regulated by law, but are introduced by government decree after definitions appear in the law, the expert adds.
“Today, those benefits that are regulated by the government decree on supporting the IT industry, according to reviews from the Ministry of Digital Development, do not apply to data center operators,” explains Dmitry Petrov, General Director of Comfortel. “They affect virtualization operators, software developers, service providers, but not the underlying engineering infrastructure.” To strengthen technological sovereignty, it would be useful to introduce tax incentives and obtain preferential credit conditions / subsidies from the state for those data center operators who comprehensively invest in Russian equipment and support a domestic manufacturer, Mikhail Vetrov, CEO of Linxdatacenter, believes.
Some owners of data centers enjoy benefits as companies providing communication services and / or developing software, the representative of Rostelecom-DPC specified. To support the entire industry, it is necessary to expand the list of activities covered by such benefits, he noted.
Data center operators will be able to count on preferential access to the energy market, says Sergey Lysenko, CEO of Atomdata. Given that the cost of electricity and capacity has a big impact on the pricing of data center services and business modeling of new investment projects, this will make them more attractive in terms of payback, he explained.
There is an element of mutual benefit in the bill, believes lawyer Pavel Katkov, a member of the Russian Chamber of Commerce and Industry Committee on Entrepreneurship in the Field of Media Communications. “Data centers expect to be exempted from licensing as telecom operators, and in return expect to receive the benefits of a special status. And the authorities are trying to reduce the organizational burden on the authorities and increase the information controllability of data centers,” he argues. In the future, data center operators, who are currently forced to be telecom operators, will be able to refuse to double their status, double reporting and double labor costs, Lysenko agrees.
The adoption of the amendments will also make it possible to form a standard for the industry regulatory framework, which can be the basis for the adoption of similar regulations in other CIS countries, Andrey Veselov, head of the sales center for digital products of Goznak, argues. This, in turn, will simplify international cooperation in terms of regulating the activities of data centers. In addition, the legal framework creates opportunities to work with different categories of customers, depending on the levels of reliability and fault tolerance, he concludes.
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