Slashdot Mirror
US Gov't Blocks Sales To Russian Supercomputer Maker
Nerval's Lobster writes "T-Platforms, which manufactured the fastest supercomputer in Russia (and twenty-sixth fastest in the world), has been placed on the IT equivalent of the no-fly list. In March, the U.S. Department of Commerce's Bureau of Industry and Security added T-Platforms' businesses in Germany, Russia and Taiwan to the 'Entity List,' which includes those believed to be acting contrary to the national security or foreign policy interests of the United States. U.S. IT companies are essentially banned from doing business with T-Platforms, especially with regards to HPC hardware such as microprocessors, which could be used for what the government views as illegal purposes. The rule, discovered by HPCWire, was published in March. According to the rule, Commerce's End-User Review Committee (ERC) believes that T-Platforms may be assisting the Russian government and military conduct nuclear research — which, given historical tensions between the two countries, apparently falls outside the bounds of permitted use. An email address that T-Platforms listed for its German office bounced, and Slashdot was unable to reach executives at its Russian headquarters for comment."
These artificial limitations on what and with who US companies can work with are just creating a wall between US and other countries. The nations that mainly benefit from this are Russia and China and they can do a lot of business and even military research together. Not only that but Russia and China have always been good friends, even after soviet russia fell down.
Therefore, both Russia and China wins and US loses.
Slashdot was unable to reach executives at its Russian headquarters for comment."
Executive's secretary: "Sir, Slashdot wants to talk to you."
Russian Executive: *rolling eyes* "That's OK. No need to respond I know what they're going say. 'In Soviet Russia Super Computers you!'"
Hi, this is Timothy from Slashdot, I'd like to speak to...
*click*
I find it very amusing to think of Timothy calling up a company in Russia for comment on why they just got blacklisted by the US Gov't. I'm not sure why, though it could be because every time I see his name on the editor line I think of the monkey from ThinkGeek.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
If it is to use russian space station, they are good enough to be friends, but if it is to actually lend them some computer power, they become enemy!!! No, really, what the heck!
And, just for the record, i don't see how this ban would stop them to buy the parts directly from the manufacturer, China.
Da, may I have 10,000 PS4s please?
.
Prisencolinensinainciusol. Ol Rait!
Our executives have been offshoring all of our technology. As such, all we did was move this company over to China who using our technology, some stolen, but far too much was given. Just for a few dollars.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Sometimes, those who lose, will come back to defeat you. Ask Europe how that works out.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
This is fairly common knowledge in the electronics industry, that anything that can be used in nuclear weapon R&D is export controlled and taken very seriously by the Commerce department. I work for a company that makes extremely fast oscilloscopes. We can't sell anything without an export license that can acquire data faster than a certain sample rate to Russia, Isreal, Iran, Pakistan, North Korea, and several other countries due to nuclear non-proliferation. This is a separate restriction from ITAR, which bans anything related to weapons R&D from export without a license. This doesn't mean that you can't export these things, just that you need approval to do it. Much of Europe and countries who are friendly with the US have similar legal constraints.
In response Russia should ban someone like Microsoft for working against its foreign policy interests. Russia is already a nuclear power -- what advantages or threats is this going to bring to the world? This is about undermining Russian industry and nothing else. It's a sort of economic warfare.
An email address that T-Platforms listed for its German office bounced, and Slashdot was unable to reach executives at its Russian headquarters for comment."
That's because T-Platforms has gone out of business. Most unfortunate.
However, there's somebody here from a new supercomputer company "U-Platforms", that would like to speak with you about purchasing some HPC microprocessors...
T-platforms is a Russian company headquartered in Moscow. This is no more surprising than Boeing selling military equipment to the USA.
US export control on computers needs to stop. The need for it ended decades ago. All US nuclear weapons were designed with computers below 10 MIPS, and in many cases below 1 MIPS. (The most recent US nuclear weapon design is from the mid-1970s.) The problem isn't getting any harder.
ARM CPU's manufactured at TSMC completely removes the US from the supply chain. Paying royalties to a British company and manufacturing in Taiwan.