Among the first measures in retaliation for having initiated the invasion of Ukraine is the cessation of material shipments to Russia of all kinds. Among which are included the different microprocessors and other hardware components, since we remember that these also have military purposes. Will the cessation of shipments to Russia negatively affect PC hardware and its market? And if so, to what extent?
The reaction of most of the world to the war in Ukraine has been clear and direct: restrictions on exports to Russia. In the case of the United States, where most of the major players in the hardware industry are from, this has meant that Intel and AMD have suspended the sale of chips in Russia. So the PC market in principle is at risk of disappearing completely when the material for sale is finished, however it is not.
Has the sale of hardware to Russia been stopped in retaliation?
At the moment the stop of the sale of hardware has not been entirely clear, since the restrictions on exports are being given mainly to chips for military purposes or applications. Although this should also cover all equipment that can be used in the civilian field as well, but can be used for the army. That is why it is speculated that the stop of the export of hardware to Russia will be total. On the other hand, Russia despite having its own industry with companies like Baikal, MCST, Yadroand STC Module, etc. It apparently lacks the manufacturing capacity within its catchment area and TSMC has also decided to cut supply to them.
However, it is expected that Russia has taken this eventuality into account and has been able to accumulate stocks of different chips along with the development, unknown to the public, of manufacturing plants using old nodes in order to have its own supply of processors. Keep in mind that for certain applications it is not necessary to have the most advanced architecture or the most modern node. In any case, despite the fact that the sale of semiconductors to Russia has been completely stopped, this will not affect the hardware market. Since the Russian government’s spending on computer hardware is nothing more than a 0.1% of the globall, and if we talk about the global hardware market they are hardly 50.3 billion of a total of 4.47 trillion US dollars.
Russian miners are the most affected
There is no doubt that Russia is one of the countries where there is a large volume of mining farms, who have been the ones that have suffered the most from the consequences of the generalized isolation from Russia. Which were already closed by the authorities of both countries in conflict a few months ago with the argument that they operated using stolen electricity.
If we add to this that the economic boycott can translate into a corralito situation in which Russian citizens seek safe haven currency, even if it is in the form of cryptocurrencies, which the Russian government cannot control, then this translates into less hardware for them and in theory a larger thickness for the rest of the world. Especially gaming graphics cards that are in short supply. In any case, the Russian market is much less important than others worldwide in terms of hardware if we talk about purchasing power, which means that the consequences will not be noticed, in principle, by companies like Intel, AMD or NVIDIA.
