Intel suspends operations in Russia
The move adds to a growing list of tech firms that have discontinued operations in Russia in the last month
US chipmaker Intel stated on Wednesday that it is halting all business operations in Russia, effective immediately, as a result of the continued invasion of the Ukraine by Russian forces.
The move follows Intel's decision last month to halt all shipments to clients in Russia and Belarus.
"Intel continues to join the global community in condemning Russia's war against Ukraine and calling for a swift return to peace," the company said in a press statement.
"We are working to support all of our employees through this difficult situation, including our 1,200 employees in Russia. We have also implemented business continuity measures to minimize disruption to our global operations," it added.
Intel's move adds to a growing list of tech firms that have ceased or discontinued operations in Russia.
Exiting a market the size of Russia would normally be a bold move for a multinational firm like Intel. However, Western sanctions have made it more difficult for such firms to do business in Russia since the start of Ukraine war.
Earlier this week, the Biden administration slapped extensive restrictions on the Russian electronics sector, which is likely to impact many of Intel's partners and customers in the country.
After the Soviet Union fell apart in late 1991, Intel was one of the first big corporations to establish a presence in Russia.
Unlike the bulk of high-tech Western firms, Intel has made significant investments in Russia over the past 30 years, including the establishment of research and development facilities.
AMD and Nvidia, two of Intel's key rivals, ceased sales of their products in Russia early last month.
IBM also halted shipments after Ukraine requested cloud computing and software businesses in the US to stop doing business with Russia.
Russia's server market is dominated by servers from IBM, HPE and Dell, with government agencies and private entities in the country relying on Western technology as the basis for their owned-and-operated IT systems.
Analysts believe many Russian firms may soon run out of equipment and will have to shut down operations if AMD and Intel CPUs, as well as servers from the big vendors, are not available.
While Russian tech firms have developed Elbrus processors, they can't compete with EPYCs or Xeons in terms of performance, and the servers based on them are judged unsuitable by Sber, one of the country's largest cloud providers.
According to a report published last week by Bloomberg, Moscow-based IT firm Yandex may run out of chips for its servers within 12 to 18 months as a result of import restrictions.
The publication's sources said sanctions on dual-use technology, which has both military and commercial uses, have impacted Yandex's self-driving car section especially hard.
Analysts think that as part of measures to mitigate the effect of sanctions, Russia may turn to China for semiconductors and other electronic components.
US Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said earlier this month that Russia's export prohibitions would be strictly enforced.
She said the US will be on the lookout for Chinese semiconductor firms attempting to circumvent the restrictions, although she added that no evidence of this has been found so far.