Putin Reportedly Comments On T-Platform Supercomputer Flap 49
Nerval's Lobster writes "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. Commerce felt, according to the notice, that T-Platforms may be illegally assisting the Russian military and/or its nuclear program. In the meantime, Russian president Vladimir Putin has reportedly weighed in on the T-Platforms question. 'That's right. The use of political levers for unfair competition,' Putin said, according to RBTH.ru. 'Our European colleagues are independent people and they claim they want to work with us in certain spheres, yet they act as though they are absolutely dependent and unable to make their own decision. Is that so?' It's odd that Putin was quoted talking about 'European colleagues' when the Americans were responsible for cutting T-Platforms off."
Re:a bit late (Score:4, Informative)
Since nuclear test bans have been in effect, all new nuclear weapon development relies primarily on computer simulation. And given Germany is in NATO and Taiwan is heavily dependent on US aid in order remain independent from China, it makes perfect sense that the US would consider assistance of companies in their countries to Russian weapons development contrary to US (and therefore NATO and Taiwanese) security.
The thing here is that T-Platforms is a Russian Supercomputer company [t-platforms.com]. They have plenty of capabilities all on their own. The US is worried about western companies assisting the Russians, but also worried about having these very capable Russian systems installed in sensitive western computational facilities.
Everything T-Platforms install is turn-key, meaning that they really don't sell off the shelf. They come in and build/install custom high-power systems on your site. There would, in all probability, be some reverse technology transfer leakage and espionage opportunity that the US is not eager to see happen. Therefore they don't really want western companies installing this gear.
I'm sure they don't want western companies assisting T-Platforms in improving their product either, but I didn't see that is the major issue here. Putin is whining about loss of sales, (publicly at least).