Made in Russia, Built for Business: Astra Group Unveils Astra Cloud Powered by Baikal-S Processors

Astra Group has launched Astra Cloud, a cloud platform built on Russian-made Baikal-S processors developed by Baikal Electronics. Pre-orders for Astra Cloud infrastructure powered by Baikal-S are already open.

This is the country’s first commercial cloud platform where the entire technology stack – from the processor itself to the end-user service layer – has been developed domestically. The new cloud offering is aimed primarily at critical information infrastructure, or CII, operators.

Russian CII operators increasingly require an ecosystem-driven platform approach where every technology layer, including low-level hardware, remains under direct control. That is the only way to build a truly sovereign and secure environment without the risks associated with imported infrastructure. Astra Cloud on Baikal-S was designed specifically to provide that environment for Russian enterprises: full independence from foreign hardware combined with built-in compliance with regulatory requirements scheduled to take effect in January 2028.

“We are not wrapping foreign hardware in an attractive enclosure,” said Denis Mukhin, CEO of Astra Cloud. “We are building an end-to-end cloud technology stack – from a Russian CPU to the final service customers actually use. For us, there is no tradeoff between ‘Russian-made’ and ‘efficient.’ Astra Cloud on Baikal-S directly aligns with global ARM standards, and we are giving businesses a way to transition to trusted infrastructure today instead of waiting until the final night before regulatory deadlines arrive.”

The ARM Difference

Until recently, Russia did not have a cloud platform built on ARM architecture, even though ARM now defines much of the global direction for modern data centers. Astra Cloud powered by Baikal-S is the first domestic platform intended to close that gap.

ARM architecture delivers significantly higher energy efficiency, which in turn lowers operating costs while maintaining strong performance for modern cloud workloads such as AI and machine learning computing, database operations, and web services. As a result, the total cost of ownership can be substantially lower than with traditional x86-based infrastructure. Those advantages have already pushed major global cloud providers, including Amazon, Microsoft, Oracle, and Google, to optimize their services for ARM.

Now that same global trend is arriving in Russia. Astra Cloud on Baikal-S promises customers comparable efficiency and performance, but on a fully domestic ARM-based stack.

Three Consumption Models for Real Business Needs

Astra Group is preparing joint deployment packages together with partners and integrators so the market receives not only the underlying technology, but also fully developed commercial implementation models.

In the public-cloud model, Astra Cloud on Baikal-S gives companies access to secure certified infrastructure and applications hosted inside Astra Cloud data centers and delivered as a service. That allows organizations to launch projects without building their own hardware infrastructure while scaling workloads from pilot deployments to production-level operations.

The private-cloud option on Baikal-S is designed for organizations that require maximum isolation and direct ownership of infrastructure. In that scenario, the same cloud technologies operate entirely within the customer’s own physical perimeter.

Meanwhile, the XCloud hardware-software appliance on Baikal-S is positioned as a turnkey cloud platform that can either be deployed inside a customer’s infrastructure under license or hosted in Astra Cloud data centers through a subscription model. Across all deployment scenarios, the cloud infrastructure operates identically. That gives customers flexibility in choosing a deployment model without introducing technology compromises.

Roadmap and Ecosystem Expansion

Astra Cloud on Baikal-S is currently undergoing final optimization under real production workloads inside Astra Group itself. Pilot access for eligible customers inside a non-certified environment is expected to open before the end of July 2026, and the company is considering offering free testing through the end of the year. A certified environment is also scheduled to launch before the end of 2026, while commercial subscriptions will expand alongside a growing marketplace of developer services.

Alongside the cloud infrastructure, Astra Cloud will provide a ready-made development environment that includes code repositories, CI/CD pipelines, and secure software-development tools. That could significantly accelerate application adaptation for Baikal-S architecture while eliminating the need for customer teams to build their own DevOps chains from scratch.

In addition, Astra Cloud on Baikal-S is expected to gain GPU servers during 2026 for AI and high-performance computing workloads. The company says this will allow Russian businesses to run AI workloads entirely within a domestic infrastructure stack without relying on foreign GPU cloud providers for machine-learning models.

Rules for Joining the Pilot Program

Participation in the Astra Cloud on Baikal-S pilot program is structured around a transparent and predictable process for businesses. To join, companies must submit an application for pre-testing and IaaS pre-orders on Baikal-S while specifying planned usage scenarios such as migrating production workloads, development and CI/CD operations, AI deployments, or failover testing. Such approach allows it to tailor infrastructure configurations to each customer’s actual workload profile and provide methodological support during the pilot phase.

Astra Group believes Baikal-S cloud infrastructure could soon become a standard platform for Russian critical infrastructure systems and, within the next two to five years, potentially serve as a foundation for exporting trusted infrastructure technologies abroad. The company is inviting software developers, cybersecurity vendors, and cloud integrators to participate in building what it sees as a technological-sovereignty ecosystem capable of driving a major leap forward.