Islands in the ocean

It is indicative: the new term “import substitution” has rapidly entered the everyday life of specialists involved in the design and construction of data centers. They began to use it in the context of sanctions and all sorts of restrictions that are being repaired by the international communities that are disloyal to Russia. The data center market has not been avoided by this topic either.

In fact, it must be admitted that there were no restrictions on the delivery of engineering equipment to the data centers by foreign manufacturers (at least, in the data center for civilian purposes). Rather, on the contrary, the barrier has arisen from our side - demands on the priority of Russian products have increasingly begun to be written in government tenders.

And then everyone asked the question: what is it - domestic products for the data center? If the bolts and nuts used in the screwdriver assembly are Chinese, can the product itself be called Russian? And what about the OEM delivery? With SKD?

The industry magicians who have become skilled in solving such problems have quickly found their way into some truly imported products using simple tricks, at least on paper. However, market mechanisms put everything in its place. Due to the dizzying rise in the dollar and the euro at the end of last year, prices for imported equipment for data centers almost doubled. And it was the price that became an accurate indicator of what percentage of the Russian components are used in the product.
')
The rise in prices for imported products and components, like a bone in the throat, stopped work on many started projects. Actually, the work is not so much stalled - it has moved into a phase of revising its own arsenals and analyzing which analogues from the domestic landscape of the engineering infrastructure can be replaced by imported components.

Fortunately, it turned out that it is still possible to take something, although not so much - the domestic producers of these products resemble a group of small islands in the ocean. But on the islands it is always better to know what is being done in the metropolis ... Hence, lobbying in tenders.

Of course, someday the initiated projects will be brought to mind, and as the ruble stabilizes, new ones will start. But the training alert that the industry is experiencing now should consolidate the useful skills of all participants. Although uninterruptible power supplies and precision air conditioners cannot be compared with Mistrals, you should not forget the lessons you learned.

But at the same time, it would be good to think about how it happened that a country with a high scientific and technical potential turned out to be dependent on imports in several principal categories of engineering equipment? What needs to be done so that the level of automation of an existing production process can compete with world peers? How to set up production so that it is economically viable?

Everyone knows the answer: for this you need to have a global market and create healthy competition. Otherwise, the domestic production capacity will not be enough even to satisfy the state order.

Raising mass high-tech production is not a matter of one decade, and experts see the only sensible solution at the moment is to remain in the current system of international division of labor. But we have time to close the gaps, and we need to use them wisely, not forgetting the legacy that previous generations left us.

Yes, there was a gap of generations, mentors, skilled workers and designers, whose experience is unique and transmitted in a unique way - from person to person, have gone. The stratum of skilled workers has grown old and has not transferred its unique skills to young people. However, it is still not too late to fix. Here strategic planning would be useful too - something that our country was so strong a few decades ago. But while the monopoly on government orders continues, professionals will prefer to stay on the islands - where people make decisions based on common sense.