Intel suspends all operations in Russia weeks after halting chip shipments
- Reference: 1649247310
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2022/04/06/intel_now_suspends_all_business/
- Source link:
Days after Russian troops marched into Ukraine and the conflict began, the chipmaker said it was complying with applicable export regulations and sanctions against the country – though US sanctions only initially pertained to the supply of semiconductors for military applications or dual purpose uses.
A broader decision was taken by Intel in [1]early March when it paused all sales. Now it is going a step further. In a statement, [2]Intel said :
[3]
"Intel continues to join the global community in condemning Russia's war against Ukraine and calling for a swift return to peace. Effective immediately, we have suspended all business operations in Russia.
[4]
[5]
"Our thoughts are with everyone who has been impacted by this war, particularly the people of Ukraine and the surrounding countries and all those around the world with family, friends and loved ones in the region.
"We are working to support all of our employees through this difficult situational including our 1,200 employees in Russia. We have also implemented business continuity measures to minimize disruption to our global operations," Intel added.
[6]
Intel does not detail in its annual reports the volume of sales it generates in Russia, although the [7]Semiconductor Industry Association said Russia accounted for just 0.1 percent of global chip purchases in 2021, and represented $50.3 billion of the $4.47 trillion spent globally on tech.
Arch-rival AMD also stopped chip sales in Russia at the end of February. "Based on sanctions placed on Russia by the United States and other nations, at this time AMD is suspending its sales and distribution of our products into Russia and Belarus," it said at the time.
We have asked AMD if it too will freeze all business operations in Russia but the company was not immediately available to reply.
[8]
The US sanctions imposed days after Russia's invasion of Ukraine also affect other chipmakers including Micron, SK Hynix and Samsung, as well as [9]storage suppliers Commvault and Pure Storage .
Russia's semiconductor market is not built to take the strain of reduced supply: it is relatively underdeveloped, and contract manufacturer TSMC recently compounded the situation by confirming it would not be building chips for Russian clients.
Large swathes of the IT industry in Europe and North America have responded to the war in Ukraine with condemnation and by pulling out of Russia, including IBM, HP, Dell, Microsoft and more. We [10]previously asked PC brands Lenovo, Asus and Acer if they plan to follow suit.
[11]Russian IT pros flee Putin, says tech lobby group
[12]Biden says Russia exploring revenge cyberattacks
[13]Qualcomm reveals it's not selling to Russia during Twitter spat
[14]Germany advises citizens to uninstall Kaspersky antivirus
[15]Conflict in Ukraine disrupts fragile supply chain recovery
Lenovo's UK PR man told us he'd "try to get a response when I can." This was on 10 March and still no further reply. Asus didn't respond at all. And Acer told us: "Our priority is the safety of our local employees and their family. We are closely monitoring the situation, and will strictly adhere to all applicable trade regulations."
Very few tech companies have estimated the financial impact of exiting the country but [16]Adobe put the figure at $75m for this current fiscal year.
[17]UiPath said that for it, the damage would be closer to $15m.
We are told to expect a [18]long-tail of cyber retaliation from Russian leader Vladimir Putin over the use of sanctions: early activity has included modem-wiping malware targeting [19]Viasat , and credentials thieves targeting [20]NATO and Eastern European military .
The Russian president has now [21]banned the purchase of foreign software used in critical infrastructures projects. ®
Get our [22]Tech Resources
[1] https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/newsroom/news/intel-statement-war-ukraine.html#gs.vwdesh
[2] https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/newsroom/news/russia-business-statement.html?cid=em&source=elo&campid=smggmo_WW_gmocoma_EMPE_EN_2022_0405_Russia_Statement_C-MKA-30126_T-MKA-30328&content=smggmo_WW_gmocoma_EMPE_EN_2022_0405_Russia_Statement_C-MKA-30126_T-MKA-30328&elq_cid=2897731&em_id=79138&elqrid=8ee197b3853248329880368cb10216e2&elqcampid=50245&erpm_id=5510714#gs.vwddb8
[3] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/systems&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2Yk25NC1VBdGQzLHqCzfmpAAAAIQ&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[4] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/systems&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44Yk25NC1VBdGQzLHqCzfmpAAAAIQ&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[5] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/systems&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33Yk25NC1VBdGQzLHqCzfmpAAAAIQ&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[6] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/systems&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44Yk25NC1VBdGQzLHqCzfmpAAAAIQ&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[7] https://www.semiconductors.org/sia-statement-on-sanctions-on-russia/
[8] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/systems&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33Yk25NC1VBdGQzLHqCzfmpAAAAIQ&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[9] https://blocksandfiles.com/2022/03/07/storage-suppliers-begin-pull-out-from-russia/
[10] https://www.theregister.com/2022/03/10/ukraine_conflict_supply_chain/
[11] https://www.theregister.com/2022/03/23/russia_it_pro_exodus/
[12] https://www.theregister.com/2022/03/22/biden_cybersecurity_statement_warning/
[13] https://www.theregister.com/2022/03/17/qualcomm_russia_sales/
[14] https://www.theregister.com/2022/03/15/kaspersky_germany_antivirus/
[15] https://www.theregister.com/2022/03/10/ukraine_conflict_supply_chain/
[16] https://www.theregister.com/2022/03/23/adobes_q1_earnings_tempered_by/
[17] https://www.theregister.com/2022/03/31/uipath_ukraine_impact/
[18] https://www.theregister.com/2022/03/31/extrahop_russian_sanctions/
[19] https://www.theregister.com/2022/03/30/viasat_spills_on_russian_attack/
[20] https://www.theregister.com/2022/04/01/russian_credential_phishing/
[21] https://www.theregister.com/2022/04/01/russia_bans_foreign_software/
[22] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Also, clear bias
And the bias is, we condemn Russia for their terrible acts. Ok, I am fine with most but not all measured (like measures against citizens without a trial).
Why is quatar not sanctioned?
And worse still Saudi Arabia? They are doing way worse things on Yemen!
Or the US for their war crimes and invasions?
In any case, I hope the best for Ukraine, and I have supported them with actual hard cold cash even if I dislike their government, as I think that actual money (and weapons) helps, words dont
Re: Also, clear bias
classic whataboutroy
Re: Also, clear bias
>And worse still Saudi Arabia? They are doing way worse things on Yemen!
Yes but they are buying weapons in $ to do it
The victims are brown
Yemen's president does have an instagram account
The crazy despot got 77.53% of the vote last time he stood for the presidency, in 2018. Opposition candidates got the rest of the vote, showing that if the common Russian citizenry people really wanted Putin out they could have voted him out.
There is a revisionist view of German history which claims that the German people as a whole were the first victims of the Nazis, who never had popular support. This is what historians call "a load of bollocks", as is the notion that Putin represents anything other than the aspirations and values of a large majority of the Russian population.
They knew what they were getting into. They bought their tickets. I say "Let them crash".
RE: knew what they were getting into
Thank you very much for posting this. I have been saying this for quite a long time, that it is the people who empower despots, as a despot is a single person and one person yelling "Die!" does not, and can not, kill millions.
It is the blind followers of those despots that actually do the dirty deeds...and never get called out at the trials of the soul to pay for their own guilt.
Re: RE: knew what they were getting into
As to that, I simply point to the Americans who voted for Drumpf, despite all his flaws and aggressive/belligerent behavior over the years. That does not mean the other half of the country that didn't vote for such a person deserves the repercussions against the nation that are levied while the fools have their way with things.
And don't underestimate the power of crowd-think and having the KGB hovering over everyone so that you don't know whether the votes are really secret or if you're going to die of Plutonium poisoning for voting against Putin.
Re: RE: knew what they were getting into
In a way, if the elections were fair, then yes, the Russian people get what they voted for, yet reports are that the election was fraudulent. From the BBC 20th September 2021 :
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-58614227
States :
"With almost all of the votes counted, the United Russia party had won nearly 50% of the vote, marking a slight drop in support from the previous election.
Mr Putin's biggest critics were barred from running, and there were reports of ballot stuffing and forced voting."
Putin got 50% of the vote. The Tories got 43.6% of the vote.
People being barred from running, does seem to be a situation that means the results were less than representative.
Re: RE: knew what they were getting into
That's just a conspiracy theory. Al Gore won his Presidential campaign, as did Hilary Clinton, and Biden only won due to ballot stuffing.
Again hypocrisy. "We" hold free & fair elections, our rivals cheat.
Re: RE: knew what they were getting into
It's just politics.
None of this is about regime change. This is why there have been no calls for Putin to be charged with war crimes, war crimes, war crimes or just genocide.
Being politics, our politicians are variously triggered, shocked and traumatised by images of bodies lying in the streets. Scenes so shocking that they've not been seen in Europe since Russia started WW2.
Alternatively, it's what happens to civilians in wartime. Or when states decide other states elected officials must go, and we do the regime change thing. Or just redraw maps. So thousands of tons of bombs dropped on Yugoslavia, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Afghanistan, Yemen, Gaza etc etc. Syria's had a war of agression, much as Ukraine has, complete with hostile occupying powers annexing large chunks of Syria's territory.
So there's a lot of hypocrisy. Civilian deaths are war crimes when Russia's responsible, but not when we're responsible. Blair, Bush etc aren't war criminals, Putin's worse than Hitler. But because we're civilised, despite being an evil mass-murderer, Putin will be convicted and executed after a fair trial.
But war crimes have occurred. None have really been investigated yet, but prejudices are already showing. People also seem to have forgotten Nayirah al-Sabah's heart breaking testimony about Iraqi soldiers killing babies in Kuwait. Everything Ukraine is telling us is true. None of it is crude attrocity propaganda.
Again I'm not supporting Russia's actions, I simply think we're getting a very one-sided view. One odd example was a story that Ukrainian's killed Russians by feeding them poisoned pies. If true, that's also a war crime.
I worry about my ancestral Ukrainians in these times, but I also feel kind of sorry for the common Russian citizen who is caught up in this mess. No one asked to be dealing with a crazy despot with no respect for the rules of war, humanity, or even a simple consideration that "Hey, maybe what I'm doing is wrong!"