The Trump administration is preparing substantial changes to the Biden-era Framework for AI Diffusion controlling advanced semiconductor exports. Sources close to the Reuters indicate officials will replace the current three-tier country classification with a unified government-to-government licensing system requiring bilateral approval for US chip acquisitions. The existing framework, implemented in January 2025, permits unrestricted exports to 17 allied nations plus Taiwan, imposes volume caps on roughly 120 countries and blocks shipments to China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea. Current regulations exempt orders below 1,700 NVIDIA H100 equivalent units from full licensing requirements, needing only a notification.

Former Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, acting as an informal adviser, verified that bilateral government agreements are under review. Officials are also considering reducing the notification threshold from 1,700 to approximately 500 H100 equivalents to address circumvention concerns. The proposal has drawn criticism from industry figures, including Oracle Executive VP Ken Glueck and a coalition of seven Republican senators who have urged Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick to withdraw the existing framework entirely. The administration faces pressure to finalize regulations before the May 15 compliance deadline, balancing security objectives with trade considerations. An announcement is expected before the month's end.

Russian and Belarusian semiconductor manufacturers have achieved a significant milestone in domestic chip production capabilities. In collaboration with Belarus-based Planar, the Zelenograd Nanotechnology Center (ZNTC) has developed a new lithography system supporting 350 nm process technology for 8-inch (200 mm) silicon wafers. This development represents a strategic response to Western sanctions severely restricting Russia's access to advanced semiconductor manufacturing equipment. The system employs solid-state laser technology to project circuit patterns onto photoresist-coated wafers through a photomask that defines the circuitry. After selective exposure, the photoresist undergoes chemical processing to build circuit structures. While the 350 nm node marks a critical capability for domestic semiconductor production, it sits almost three decades behind leading-edge fabrication processes in high-performance computing applications.

This technology is comparable to what powered Intel's Pentium II processors in the late 1990s. Despite this technological gap, the equipment will enable the production of various electronic components suitable for consumer electronics and certain specialized military applications where bleeding-edge performance isn't required. ZNTC has already outlined plans to develop a more advanced 130 nm lithography system by 2026 as part of a government-backed initiative to incrementally enhance domestic semiconductor capabilities. While unable to match the 3-5 nm processes currently deployed by global semiconductor leaders, this lithography system establishes a foundation for domestic chip manufacturing infrastructure, especially in the category of mature nodes. The success of this intermediate solution will likely influence government funding priorities as the country attempts to narrow the technological gap with Western semiconductor capabilities in the coming years.

According to a recent investigative report, UK-based Imagination Technologies faces allegations of transferring sensitive GPU intellectual property to Chinese companies with potential military connections. The UK-China Transparency organization claims that following its 2020 acquisition by China-controlled investment firm Canyon Bridge, Imagination provided complete access to its GPU IP to Chinese entities with military connections. The report suggests this included sharing detailed architectural documentation typically reserved for premier clients like Apple. At the center of the controversy are Chinese firms Moore Threads and Biren Technology, which have emerged as significant players in China's AI and GPU sectors. The report indicates Moore Threads maintains connections with military GPU suppliers, while Biren Technology has received partial Russian investment.

The organization argues that Canyon Bridge, which has ties to the state-owned China Reform enterprise, helped these technological transfers to benefit China's military-industrial complex. Imagination Technologies has defended its actions, maintaining that all licensing agreements comply with industry standards. The allegations have sparked renewed debate about foreign ownership of strategic technology assets and the effectiveness of current export controls. When Canyon Bridge acquired Imagination in 2020, security experts raised concerns about potential military applications of the firm's technology. UKCT plans to release additional findings, including information from legal disputes involving Imagination's previous management. Rising concerns over technology transfers have prompted governments to reassess export controls and corporate oversight in the semiconductor industry, as nations struggle to balance international commerce with national security priorities. We are yet to see official government response to this situation.

Latest reports indicate that sanctioned Chinese PC hardware manufacturer DeepCool's products have appeared on major US online marketplaces under the brand "Shaking Tank," as revealed by YouTuber Greg Salazar on social media platform X. This comes two months after the US State Department sanctioned DeepCool for alleged business with Russian firms involved in the Ukraine conflict, barring US sales and imports of their products. Despite this, retailers like Amazon and Newegg list apparent DeepCool products under the Shaking Tank brand. These listings show product renders with the DeepCool logo blurred or removed. Fan hubs previously displaying the DeepCool emblem now show blank spaces, and product packaging has obscured identifying marks. Examples include the DeepCool AK620 and LS720 models, now advertised as ShakingTank AK620 and LS720.

The nature of this rebranding still needs to be clarified. While DeepCool adopting a new name to bypass sanctions would likely face severe legal consequences, more plausible explanations include a reseller rebranding remaining inventory or retailers clearing sanctioned stock. This situation questions trade sanctions' effectiveness and enforcement in the global marketplace, leaving consumers uncertain about DeepCool's future in the US market and potential impacts on international trade regulations.

The US Department of the Treasury on Wednesday, sanctioned 16 Chinese tech companies involved in supporting the Russian wartime economy, or supplying goods to blacklisted Russian firms, as the war in Ukraine rages on. A surprising name on this list is Beijing Deepcool Industries, the company behind the popular PC cooling, casing, and power supply brand Deepcool. A US State Department release announcing the sanctions, described Deepcool as supplying $1 million worth common high-priority items list (CHPL) goods. These are items that could directly or indirectly support the Russian war-effort in Ukraine. "BEIJING DEEPCOOL INDUSTRIES CO LTD is a PRC-based company involved in the supply of over $1 million worth of CHPL items to Russian companies, including the U.S.-designated, Russia-based AKTSIONERNOE OBSHCHESTVO TASKOM and OOO NOVYI AI TI PROEKT," the State Department release says.

Meanwhile, the executive aspect of the sanctions are handled by the Treasury Department, which restricts all transactions by US firms to the 16 newly sanctioned Chinese companies, which include Deepcool. What this means is that the US-end of Deepcool must immediately cease operations, as it cannot transact any business with its parent company in China. Sale of Deepcool product will also stop, as US residents cannot conduct any business with the company. This could also mean that the US-based subsidiary of Deepcool may not be in a position to provide aftersales support to existing customers in the country.

On March 29th, the United States announced another round of updates to its export controls, targeting advanced computing, supercomputers, semiconductor end-uses, and semiconductor manufacturing products. These new regulations, which took effect on April 4th, are designed to prevent certain countries and businesses from circumventing U.S. restrictions to access sensitive chip technologies and equipment. Despite these tighter controls, TrendForce believes the practical impact on the industry will be minimal.

The latest updates aim to refine the language and parameters of previous regulations, tightening the criteria for exports to Macau and D:5 countries (China, North Korea, Russia, Iran, etc.). They require a detailed examination of all technology products' Total Processing Performance (TPP) and Performance Density (PD). If a product exceeds certain computing power thresholds, it must undergo a case-by-case review. Nevertheless, a new provision, Advanced Computing Authorized (ACA), allows for specific exports and re-exports among selected countries, including the transshipment of particular products between Macau and D:5 countries.

We have provided an update on the nation-state attack that was detected by the Microsoft Security Team on January 12, 2024. As we shared, on January 19, the security team detected this attack on our corporate email systems and immediately activated our response process. The Microsoft Threat Intelligence investigation identified the threat actor as Midnight Blizzard, the Russian state-sponsored actor also known as NOBELIUM. As we said at that time, our investigation was ongoing, and we would provide additional details as appropriate.

In recent weeks, we have seen evidence that Midnight Blizzard is using information initially exfiltrated from our corporate email systems to gain, or attempt to gain, unauthorized access. This has included access to some of the company's source code repositories and internal systems. To date we have found no evidence that Microsoft-hosted customer-facing systems have been compromised. It is apparent that Midnight Blizzard is attempting to use secrets of different types it has found. Some of these secrets were shared between customers and Microsoft in email, and as we discover them in our exfiltrated email, we have been and are reaching out to these customers to assist them in taking mitigating measures. Midnight Blizzard has increased the volume of some aspects of the attack, such as password sprays, by as much as 10-fold in February, compared to the already large volume we saw in January 2024.

AMD FSR 3 Is Coming To The Thaumaturge—a Gripping and Dark RPG. The Thaumaturge is a story-driven RPG with morally ambiguous choices, taking place in the culturally diverse world of early 20th century Warsaw. In this world, Salutors exist: esoteric beings that only Thaumaturges can truly perceive and use for their needs. The Thaumaturge launches February 20th, with AMD FSR 3. Watch the brand new story trailer below.

When it launches later this month, The Thaumaturge will feature AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution 3. FSR 3 transforms gaming experiences with massive and responsive framerates in supported games using a combination of temporal upscaling technology, advanced frame generation, and built-in latency reduction technology.

An MSI Arc A310 4 GB Low Profile 2X graphics card is now available to purchase at a couple of Russian PC hardware retailers (for roughly $140), and a local YouTuber has already produced a quick unboxing video. Intel's board partners have been sluggish in adopting lower-end Alchemist GPU variants, with only a handful of companies bothering to produce cards based on the Arc A310 (DG2-128).

Sparkle displayed an unnamed super compact model at Computex 2023, and presentation slides have recently revealed that their "Industrial Low-Profile" series will be introduced under the GENIE moniker, comprised of single slot/fan A310 and A380 variants. Sparkle has not outlined a possible Western release for these budget cards, and other manufacturers have been reluctant to move beyond the Chinese OEM market. The Gigabyte A3 series is reportedly a Russian market exclusive for the moment, so it will be interesting to see if MSI is only targeting that territory with its competing dual fan design Arc A310 4 GB Low Profile model.

According to the report from Reuters, Acer has apparently continued shipment of computer hardware to Russia, despite the firm supposedly suspending its operations in the country. With the war in Ukraine, on April 8 of, 2022, Acer published a statement: "Due to recent developments, Acer has decided to suspend its business in Russia." However, today Reuters reports that it has gained access to documents/data of customs that confirm that Acer has shipped computer hardware worth at least 70.4 million US Dollars between the period of April 8, 2022, and March 31, 2023.

Interestingly, Acer is a firm headquartered in Taiwan. However, Switzerland-based Acer Sales International SA entity shipped these units to Russia, thus not violating any Taiwanese sanctions to Russia that are in place. When asked about these shipments, Acer in Taiwan responded: "We strictly adhere to applicable international regulations and trade laws regarding exports to Russia." Additionally, the company stated that the Swiss subsidiary "had not shipped any laptops or desktops to Russia since April 8 last year." Still, instead, it had supplied a "limited number of displays and accessories to the Russian market for civilian daily use while ensuring compliance with international sanctions."

Russian business news outlet Kommersant has learned from industry figures that prices of natively-designed computer processors have been on the rise since the beginning of 2023. Domestic manufacturers of PC, server and storage systems are requiring greater supplies of CPUs designed by Baikal Electronics and MCST - the publication posits that growing demand and logistical issues have become the root cause of recent climbs in cost - individuals involved in the computer hardware supply chain have suggested that some processor models have doubled in price. Sergey Ovchinnikov, the chief executive of Norsi-Trans (a server and data storage firm) provided comment: "Production of Russian chips at foreign fabs has become more complex, leading to extended logistics chains and, consequently, an increase in the cost of the final component." International trade sanctions have not prevented the arrival of fresh silicon into the region - Ovchinnikov claims that an unnamed foundry is able to supply (likely via proxy) Russian developers with computer processors.

Kommersant's investigation found out that Baikal's BE-T1000 CPU is now sold for roughly $110 (8900 Rubles) at a popular computer hardware e-tailer (ChipDip) in the region. The very basic dual core MIPS32r5 (28 nm) processor was readily available for $50 (3990 rubles) back in 2018, so its price has risen by 220% in recent times. TSMC was contracted as the manufacturer of Baikal's BE-T1000 CPU, and the Taiwanese foundry started producing these SoCs in 2016. A Baikal Electronics representative has denied any involvement in driving up MSRP, and states that it is up to distributors and retail outfits to determine prices. The company suspects that very old stock is being sold at inflated rates - Kommersant was unable to contact anyone at ChipDip for a statement.

More leaks are emerging from Russia regarding NVIDIA's not-yet-officially-confirmed RTX 4060 Ti GPU family - two days ago Marvel Distribution (RU) released details of four upcoming Palit custom design cards, again confirming the standard RTX 4060 Ti GPU configuration of 8 GB VRAM (plus 128-bit memory bus). Earlier today hardware tipster momomo_us managed to track down some more pre-launch time info (rumors point to late May), courtesy of another Russian e-retailer (extremecomp.ru). The four Palit Dual and StormX custom cards from the previous leak are spotted again, but this new listing provides a few extra details.

Palit's four card offerings share the same basic specification of 18 GB/s GDDR6 memory, pointing to a maximum theoretical bandwidth of up to 288 GB/s - derived from the GPU's confirmed 8 GB 128-bit memory interface. The standard Dual variant appears to have a stock clock speed of 2310 MHz, the StormX and StormX OC models are faster at 2535 MHz and 2670 MHz (respectively), and the Dual OC is the group leader with 2685 MHz. The TPU database's (speculative) entry for the reference NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 Ti GPU has the base clock listed as 2310 MHz, and the boost clock at 2535 MHz - so the former aligns with the Palit Dual model's normal mode of operation (its boost clock number is unknown), and the latter lines up with the standard StormX variant's (presumed) boost mode. Therefore the leaked information likely shows only the boosted clock speeds for Palit's StormX, StormX OC and Dual OC cards.

NVIDIA is expected to roll out its RTX 4060 Ti GPU series later this month but the American hardware giant has not issued any official material about these cards - leaks have so far become the only sources of specification and configuration information. A launch price of $450 is mooted, and the low-to-midrange RTX 4060 Ti is likely to sport NVIDIA's AD106 GPU (based on its Ada Lovelace graphics architecture). Previous leaks have indicated that this variant will be offered in an 8 GB VRAM configuration with a 128-bit memory interface, although TPU hardware archivist (T4C Fantasy) reckons that NVIDIA's board partners can opt for larger pools of video memory.

A retailer in Russia has released (possibly in error) catalog listings for four upcoming Palit branded GeForce RTX 4060 Ti graphics card models. The board partner seems to be offering two sets of its Dual and StormX designs - in normal and overclocked variations - but all of these models share the bog standard VRAM allocation of 8 GB, paired with the usual 128-bit memory interface. Palit's Dual cooler design is currently available on its RTX 4070-based models, but the StormX cooling solution design has not been applied to any 40 series cards so far - the upcoming RTX 4060 Ti cards will debut a (likely) smaller StormX shroud, heatsink and fan combination.

TrendForce reports that the US Department of Commerce recently released details regarding its CHIPS and Science Act, which stipulates that beneficiaries of the act will be restricted in their investment activities—for more advanced and mature processes—in China, North Korea, Iran, and Russia for the next ten years. The scope of restrictions in this updated legislation will be far more extensive than the previous export ban, further reducing the willingness of multinational semiconductor companies to invest in China for the next decade.

CHIPS Act will mainly impact TSMC; and as the decoupling of the supply chain continues, VIS and PSMC capture orders rerouted from Chinese foundries
In recent years, the US has banned semiconductor exports and passed the CHIPS Act, all to ensure supply chains decoupling from China. Initially, bans on exports were primarily focused on non-planar transistor architecture (16/14 nm and more advanced processes). However, Japan and the Netherlands have also announced that they intend to join the sanctions, which means key DUV immersion systems, used for producing both sub-16 nm and 40/28 nm mature processes, are likely to be included within the scope of the ban as well. These developments, in conjunction with the CHIPS Act, mean that the expansion of both Chinese foundries and multinational foundries in China will be suppressed to varying degrees—regardless of whether they are advanced or mature processes.

Nintendo ceased selling products and wound down its operations in Russia last March, soon after the invasion of Ukraine by Russian military forces. Other notable games software and hardware companies also announced their withdrawal at a similar time. Microsoft/Xbox, Sony/PlayStation, Activision Blizzard, Electronic Arts, CD Projekt, Sega, Ubisoft and Take-Two Interactive are among a group that discontinued the sale and distribution of games products in Russian territory markets. Lawmakers within Russia have taken a fairly lax stance on the import of consumer and industrial goods - it is legal to do so, even minus a rightsholder's approval. It seems that a couple of Nintendo of Russia employees have taken advantage of loose import regulations in the past few months.

According to a news piece published online by Kommersant (a Russian politics and business newspaper) a relatively new operation registered under the company name "Achivka LLC" is involved in the sale and distribution of Nintendo games in Russian territories. Nintendo Russia CEO Yasha Haddaji is reported to be the leader and majority owner of Achivka LLC, and former corporate events manager Ksenia Kachalova is listed as being a minority stakeholder in the company. The operation's premises appear to match the exact address for Nintendo of Russia. The firm is involved in the importing (from an unknown source) and selling of Nintendo games - the Kommersant article includes photographic evidence - a physical copy of Metroid Prime Remastered is demonstrated as bearing an Achivka stick-on label. The English translation of the company name is Achievement, which is an appropriate word association in the world of high score driven computer games.

Update Apr 18th: Nintendo has confirmed that Yasha Haddazhi, CEO of the Russian Office, remains as a current employee of the international company - but only on a temporary basis. Nintendo continues to distance itself from Achivka LLC and the selling of rebadged products in Russian territories. See below for more details.

According to news agencies residing within Russian territories, it has been widely reported that Cisco has destroyed an inventory of unsold equipment with a total worth of $23.5 million. TASS, a Kremlin-controlled news organization, has made reference to account statements provided by Cisco Systems (the remaining legal entity of the Cisco Group based within the Federation) - it reports that the equipment was "physically destroyed" in January 2023, post a termination of sales in Russia and Belarus. The financial statements outline the liquidation of "primarily spare parts," but the agency claims that Cisco engaged in the destruction of network hardware, demo units and office furniture.

Cisco was one of the first tech companies to withdraw from Russian territories, following the full-scale invasion of the Ukraine. Soon after the beginning of the conflict, Cisco Systems announced the cessation of its business dealings, starting with a stoppage of sales in March 2022. A June deadline was specified for a complete shutdown of operations. The company made a decision by August 2022 to dispose of unsold inventories located within affected territories - the necessary permits for re-export of goods had not been obtained. It is not clear whether U.S. sanctions (against Russia) played a part in influencing the North American tech company's decision to engage in a scorched earth policy and obliterate the physical remnants of stock plus premises in Russia and Belarus.

According to the International Data Corporation (IDC) Worldwide Quarterly Enterprise Infrastructure Tracker: Buyer and Cloud Deployment, spending on compute and storage infrastructure products for cloud deployments, including dedicated and shared IT environments, increased 16.3% year over year in the fourth quarter of 2022 (4Q22) to $24.1 billion. Spending on cloud infrastructure continues to outgrow the non-cloud segment although the latter had strong growth in 4Q22 as well, increasing 9.4% year over year to $18.7 billion. For the full year, cloud infrastructure grew 19.4% to $87.7 billion, while non-cloud grew 13.6% to $66.7 billion. The market continues to benefit from high demand, large backlogs, rising prices, and an improving infrastructure supply chain.

According to multiple reports and sources close to Tom's Hardware, Intel and Microsoft have quietly resumed operations and a basic level of support in Russia. As to comply with sanctions imposed by Europe, the UK, and US, Intel and Microsoft are forbidden to sell any new technology within the state of Russia. This has made Intel and Microsoft block official software downloads. However, Intel has stated that the company is obliged to provide warranty services that are a part of purchasing an Intel product. "Intel continues to comply with all applicable export regulations and sanctions in the countries in which it operates. This includes compliance with the sanctions and export controls against Russia and Belarus issued by the US and allied nations. Access to resources that meet driver update needs, such as the Intel Download Center and Intel Download Support Assistant (IDSA), are part of Intel's warranty obligations," said Intel, adding that "There have been no recent changes to our operations."

These changes are not exactly "recent," as reports close to Tom's Hardware have noted that downloads were resumed towards the end of 2022. Izvestia and CNews reported that users could access the Intel download portal without VPN and IP masking. This required finding a download section through Google/Yandex, as the official Intel Russia website is still not officially reachable by Russian IPs.

MSI Afterburner is arguably the most popular graphics card overclocking utility that everyone from gamers to professional overclockers swear by. It is used across graphics card brands, and helps you tune up both NVIDIA and AMD GPUs. While you enjoy Afterburner with your new-generation GeForce RTX 40-series "Ada" and Radeon RX 7000 series RDNA3 GPUs that were released in 2022, do remember that Afterburner's developer hasn't been paid a penny for it.

MSI Afterburner is developed by Russian national Alexey Nicolaychuk, who goes by the name Unwinder across tech forums. Following the Russian invasion of Ukraine in early-2022, MSI stopped payments to Unwinder citing "political reasons." Unwinder had been independently (read: without payment) supporting Afterburner out of personal interest throughout 2022 in hopes that MSI would figure out a way to pay him. Interestingly, MSI PC hardware continued to be sold in the Russian market throughout 2022. Despite continuing to develop Afterburner throughout 2022 without payment, MSI hasn't resolved its payments. In a community post, Unwinder announced that he is finally calling it quits, and is halting development of the app. This development ensures that the app works reliably with new GPUs as they're being launched, fixes bugs, and patches security issues.

According to TrendForce, global notebook shipments in 4Q22 are likely to decline to 42.9 million units, down 7.2% QoQ and 32.3% YoY, lower than the same period before the pandemic. In addition, market demand is affected by negative factors such as inventory, the Russian-Ukrainian war, and rising inflation, leading to a downward revision of notebook market shipments in 2022 to 189 million units, a 23% decline YoY, with the proportion of shipments in the first and second half of the year at 53:47, the first top-heavy scenario in the past ten years.

According to research, the structural imbalance between notebook market supply and demand remains unresolved at present, leading this year's notebook shipments to present a downward movement trend quarter by quarter. TrendForce believes, after current inventory pressure gradually returns to a healthy level, Chromebooks may be the first wave of products that will see a recovery in demand by 2Q23 and traditional cyclical growth momentum is expected to return to the market, with shipments set to rebound slightly from 14.44 million in 2022 to 16.2 million units.

Worldwide tablet shipments were down 8.8% year over year in the third quarter of 2022 (3Q22), totaling 38.6 million units, according to preliminary data from the International Data Corporation (IDC) Worldwide Quarterly Personal Computing Device Tracker. This was the fifth straight quarter of decline for the tablet market. Chromebook shipments also struggled in 3Q22, falling to 4.3 million units and a year-over-year decline of 34.4%. Both markets have now shifted from supply constrained industries to ones that are demand challenged as consumer and education spending has slowed in the face of economic uncertainties.

Chinese vendors continue to do well in emerging markets where there is low-end demand. Sanctions from many vendors also enabled Chinese vendors like Huawei to perform well in the Russian market. Meanwhile, the emergence of low-priced Chinese OEMs like Realme, Xiaomi, Oppo and others, has fueled strong competition in the lower range devices. However, these gains still couldn't offset the decline experienced by the main tablet vendors.

In December of 2021, we covered the appearance of Russia's home-grown Baikal-S processor, which has 48 cores based on Arm Cortex-A75 cores. Today, thanks to the famous chip photographer Fritzchens Fritz, we have the first die shows that show us exactly how Baikal-S SoC is structured internally and what it is made up of. Manufactured on TSMC's 16 nm process, the Baikal-S BE-S1000 design features 48 Arm Cortex-A75 cores running at a 2.0 GHz base and a 2.5 GHz boost frequency. With a TDP of 120 Watts, the design seems efficient, and the Russian company promises performance comparable to Intel Skylake Xeons or Zen1-based AMD EPYC processors. It also uses a home-grown RISC-V core for management and controlling secure boot sequences.

Below, you can see the die shots taken by Fritzchens Fritz and annotated details by Twitter user Locuza that marked the entire SoC. Besides the core clusters, we see that a slum of cache connects everything, with six 72-bit DDR4-3200 PHYs and memory controllers surrounding everything. This model features a pretty good selection of I/O for a server CPU, as there are five PCIe 4.0 x16 (4x4) interfaces, with three supporting CCIX 1.0. You can check out more pictures below and see the annotations for yourself.

Microsoft Corp. today announced the following results for the quarter ended June 30, 2022, as compared to the corresponding period of last fiscal year:

• Revenue was $51.9 billion and increased 12% (up 16% in constant currency)
• Operating income was $20.5 billion and increased 8% (up 14% in constant currency)
• Net income was $16.7 billion and increased 2% (up 7% in constant currency)
• Diluted earnings per share was $2.23 and increased 3% (up 8% in constant currency)

"We see real opportunity to help every customer in every industry use digital technology to overcome today's challenges and emerge stronger," said Satya Nadella, chairman and chief executive officer of Microsoft. "No company is better positioned than Microsoft to help organizations deliver on their digital imperative - so they can do more with less."

Even as the Russo-Ukrainian war continues grassing with no end in sight, Microsoft has warned that Russia is increasing its cyberwarfare-based attacks against Ukraine and the countries that have vowed to support it against external aggressions. The Redmond-based company says that Russia is increasing the rate and complexity of its attacks not only on government agencies, but also on supporting infrastructures such as think thanks, telecommunications, energy, and defense companies. Even humanitarian groups, which have been tirelessly providing Ukraine's population with the resources needed for bare survival, have been in the sights of the former Soviet Union.

All in all, Microsoft has registered attacks 102 organizations from as many as 42 countries. Microsoft's numbers place around 60% of the attacks against NATO members - with the US being one of the favorite targets. Poland too has been particularly affected, being one of the distribution centers for provisions - and a hub for refugees to leave the embattled country. Despite that, Microsoft says only around 29% of the attacks have been successful - likely a testament to both Russia's technological difficulties and the overall reinforced networks and cybersecurity defenses of NATO countries. Even so, resources spent fighting Russia's attacks have an opportunity cost - they can't be spent elsewhere.

It turns out that Russia was a major supplier of, among many other things, industrial-grade noble gases, which are vital for semiconductor production. Earlier this month, the Russian government announced that it is cutting supply of noble gases to "unfriendly countries" (countries in the US sphere of influence), unless they pay for the merchandise in Russian Rubles, by creating remittance accounts in Russian banks (similar to how it wants these countries to pay for crude oil and natural gas).

Russia and Ukraine were leading global suppliers of industrial noble gases, together making up a third of the noble gas consumed by the semiconductor industry. Much of the heavy industry in Ukraine is either out of service, or committed to the war effort, which lets Russia dictate terms for its supply. Argon, xenon, helium, and neon are the most sought after noble gases in the semiconductor industry. In addition to the inert environment, mixtures of these gases are required by the lasers that perform lithography (etching microscopic circuits on silicon wafer).