Putin's friend's institute will pay a fine for the failure of the Intel import substitution program
The Russian Ministry of Industry and Trade has fined the Kurchatov Institute research center 303.1 million rubles.
The sanctions were imposed due to years of delays in developing a microchip intended to replace American Intel processors, which was never put into production on time.
The contract to develop a domestic chip, worth over 900 million rubles, was signed back in 2016.
According to the agreement, the institute was supposed to complete the development of the technology by November 2019, but in fact, this phase was not completed until September 2023. The total delay in fulfilling the government contract amounted to 1,381 days.
It is worth noting that the Kurchatov Institute is headed by Mikhail Kovalchuk—a figure close to the Kremlin and the brother of Yuri Kovalchuk, who is considered the main shareholder of Bank Rossiya and one of the closest friends of the U.S. president.
Despite such close ties to the aggressor’s leadership, the institute is facing serious financial penalties for inefficiency for the second time.
Development was based on the outdated 45 nm topology, which was relevant for global industry leaders a decade and a half ago. The Russian chip was intended for small-sized onboard computing devices for military use.
Its direct counterpart was the Intel Atom E680T processor, which Intel released way back in 2010.
The technical specifications called for the creation of a 1.2 GHz microprocessor based on two Russian cores with an architecture similar to MIPS64.
The device was also to be equipped with a graphics core and four PCI Express 2.0 controllers.
However, the inability to implement even such outdated specifications on time demonstrates a deep crisis in the Russian high-tech sector.
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