The Russian government has decided to domestically produce a computer chip which for use in government offices and state-run firms. The move is meant to elbow processors from the likes of AMD and Intel out of government use due to concerns about US spying and processor back doors.
The Russian News Agency ITAR-TASS reports that there are going to be two initial Baikal chips; the Baikal M and the Baikal M/S. These chips will be designed upon the foundation provided by the ARM Cortex-A57 64-bit processor and be employed in personal computers and microservers.
The Russian government and state-run firms purchase about 700,000 PCs and 300,000 servers per year totalling $1.3 billion in spending. If most of the processors currently come from the likes of AMD and Intel then this will represent a big loss of business for the US tech giants. The Baikal microprocessor design work isn't set to start until sometime next year, so at least this is a decent amount of notice to the US chip makers.
It's for political reasons.
You'll see more of this as the governments come to realize that they can't trust american products in some critical scenarios like defense, big internet carriers and enterprise.
American products are defective by design in order to give access to the us government or a competitive advantage to american companies and will be deprioritized or replaced entirely with "domestic" (european, chinese, russian designed) alternatives whenever possible and if it makes strategic and economic sense.
This is an american forum and obviously you don't like to hear this, but that's the truth and this is a straight consequence of the nsa leaks.
The world has realized they you either have a domestic IT industry or you accept to be spied relentlessly by foreign powers.
Political reasons and rather silly paranoia about backdoors, but the end result is still the same. But I don't think 700k desktop + 300k server parts is going to be a huge blow to Intel/AMD. But if this ripples through more of Russia and China does something similar (instead of Loongson which never really went anywhere) it could be a bigger deal.
Russia is irrelevant for this. They do not have neither the talent nor the volumes. China is another story.
Does Russia even have any modern chip fabs? Otherwise they're still going to have to shop abroad to get their chip produced.
Russia is irrelevant for this. They do not have neither the talent nor the volumes. China is another story.
So Russia has 143 million people, at least 40 million or so using the internet where Russian is the second most common language. So how many x86 PCs do you think are in use and sold in Russia today? I'm genuinely interested in your estimate.
This is not surprising given the NSA's illegal monitoring activities. A nation with secrets to protect will not chance using hardware or software that has been created in a climate where the NSA has the ability to infest anything and instruct companies to stay quiet.
For them no amount of paranoia is too much. Many nations are likely pursuing the same goals. Some may turn to using old hardware from before the madness. These days I doubt many governments will use anything produced by an American company that will be exposed to their sensitive areas or infrastructure.
They're for government machines. I don't doubt that there will be public implications as well, but it's not like the entire country is moving over.So Russia has 143 million people, at least 40 million or so using the internet where Russian is the second most common language. So how many x86 PCs do you think are in use and sold in Russia today? I'm genuinely interested in your estimate.
Talent doesn't really matter either, if the government wants to embargo American CPUs Intel and AMD will lose those sales no matter how bad the replacements are.
I must play devil's advocate. Does anyone think a chip designed by the Russian government is any less likely to have secret backdoors or hacks?
I must play devil's advocate. Does anyone think a chip designed by the Russian government is any less likely to have secret backdoors or hacks?
They're for government machines. I don't doubt that there will be public implications as well, but it's not like the entire country is moving over.
But I don't think 700k desktop + 300k server parts is going to be a huge blow to Intel/AMD. But if this ripples through more of Russia and China does something similar (instead of Loongson which never really went anywhere) it could be a bigger deal.
Gotcha.From my first post in the thread I'm only talking about a hypothetical future scenario where the Russian government considers their solution good enough to push x86 products out of the market forcibly.
It may be that their paranoia only extends to protecting government data and it's not worth it to try to do anything so extreme. But if they wanted to strike this blow I don't think it'd be irrelevant to Intel.
Easily possible, but for their interests it would be their backdoors and no one else's. Just as likely there would be none. Why create a hole that could be exploited if your goal is to cover your own backside.
If you're talking about unintentional backdoors/hacks, they'll still be subject to that. I think the point is that the Russian gov't would rather be in control and informed of any intentional backdoors.
But as for less-likely? It hard to reduce on a 0% probability. (just my personal opinion)
Political reasons and rather silly paranoia about backdoors, but the end result is still the same. But I don't think 700k desktop + 300k server parts is going to be a huge blow to Intel/AMD. But if this ripples through more of Russia and China does something similar (instead of Loongson which never really went anywhere) it could be a bigger deal.
That assumes there are no spooky-spooks (planted moles or turn-coats) on the design team for the Russian chip...or that the NSA doesn't find a way to hack in and make a few advantageous changes