The global economy is facing tremendous uncertainty from the war between Hamas and Israel in the Middle East, on top of the ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine. Those conflicts don't just threaten the regions where they're unfolding; they may also fray the weakening interconnectedness that remains among the world's largest economies.

Russia has an ambitious plan to build up to ten supercomputers by 2030, each potentially housing 10,000 to 15,000 Nvidia H100 GPUs. From a computing perspective, this would provide the nation with performance on a scale similar to that which was used to train Chat GPT. Formidable in general, a system featuring so many H100 GPUs could produce some 450 FP64 TFLOPS, which is half of an ExaFLOP, a level of supercomputer performance that has only been achieved by the US so far.

After the pandemic and war in Ukraine, and the inflation shock that followed, the global economy is in a precarious state. The last thing it needs right now is another nasty surprise.

According to a single report from the Kommersant, the Chinese government has decided to stop the supply of locally manufactured Loongson chips to Russia.

Global exports of semiconductors to Russia have plummeted by 90% since the United States and allies slapped export controls on Moscow over its invasion of Ukraine, US Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said on Wednesday.

IBM is among a long list of companies that suspended operations in Russia when President Putin invaded Ukraine in February.

The goals don't exactly sound ambitious. For example, while TSMC plans to hit 2nm by 2026, Russia wants 28nm local chip manufacturing by 2030.

Ericsson said it had suspended business with customers in Russia "indefinitely," extending a halt from February that was originally billed as temporary, following sanctions imposed as a result of Russia's war in Ukraine.

"Intel continues to join the global community in condemning Russia's war against Ukraine and calling for a swift return to peace. Effective immediately, we have suspended all business operations in Russia. This follows our earlier decision to suspend all shipments to customers in Russia and Belarus," Intel said in a statement.

Russia is turning to microchip manufactures in China to circumvent western sanctions which have boosted demand for bank cards linked to the Mir payment system, an executive with the domestic payment system said.

Japan will stop exporting semiconductors to Russia next week, joining the US and its European allies in efforts to cripple Russia's military capability.

TSMC ensured it had alternate supplies of neon after Russia amassed a force along the Ukrainian border, threatening a conflict, according to a person familiar with TSMC's strategy.

if the United States were to find that a company like the Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation, in Shanghai, was selling its chips to Russia, "we could essentially shut SMIC down because we prevent them from using our equipment and our software."

In the wake of President Putin's military aggression in Ukraine, some firms, including Apple, Jaguar Land Rover, H&M and Burberry, have announced they are pausing activities in Russia.

Apple has become the latest major firm to halt all product sales in Russia, in he wake of its invasion of Ukraine. The vendor said it was "deeply concerned" about the Russian invasion and stands with those "suffering as a result of the violence."

Oil prices have surged past US$100 a barrel after Russian President Vladimir Putin launched a "special military operation" in the eastern Donbas region of Ukraine.

ASML, a key supplier to computer chip makers, is examining alternative sources for the small amount of neon it uses in its factories in case a conflict between Russia and Ukraine disrupts supplies.

Micron Technology, the biggest maker of computer memory chips in the US, said the growing crisis in Ukraine highlights the complexity and vulnerability of the semiconductor supply chain. Some of the gases used in the production of chips comes from the country which the US says Russia is invading.

Oil prices are climbing on fears that the Ukraine-Russia crisis will disrupt supply chains across the world.

Russia is ready to co-operate with China and its Huawei on 5G technology which Moscow is currently trying to develop, the Interfax news agency reported on Sunday, citing Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.

Russia and Saudi Arabia have struck a deal with other major crude producers to slash oil production in a bid to steady a market that has been shaken by the coronavirus pandemic.

It's another brick in Russia's own Great Firewall.

Russia has passed a law banning the sale of certain devices that are not pre-installed with Russian software.

Never one to shy away from a gunfight, Russian President Vladimir Putin has been nibbling around the edges of Washington's battle with Chinese tech giant Huawei for months.

On Friday, a controversial new law took effect in Russia: The so-called "sovereign internet" law, which mandates the creation of an independent internet for Russia.

China's Huawei has begun talks with Russia about installing Russian operating system (OS) Aurora on 360,000 of its tablets to conduct Russia's population census next year, two sources told Reuters.

Yandex, a Russian equivalent to Google, said it is considering expanding its fleet of self-driving cars to up to 1,000 within the next two years in order to speed up tests on the fledgling technology.

Russia is offering to supply etching gas to South Korea, in a move that could help Seoul get around Japanese restrictions on exports to its neighbor of the key element for semiconductor production.

Russia suggested that it may be able to supply South Korean businesses with highly pure hydrogen fluoride (etching gas), one of the items subjected to recent export controls by the Japanese government, the Hankyoreh has learned.

10 VPN service providers have been ordered to link their servers in Russia to the state censorship agency by April 26.

Thousands of people in Russia have protested against plans to introduce tighter restrictions on the internet.

Alibaba has a trio of new partners in Russia.

Apple has been found guilty of price-fixing in Russia, after the country's anti-monopoly agency said the US company had arranged for retailers to co-ordinate the prices of its iPhone models.?

Russia is investigating Apple over allegations of fixing prices for the iPhone in the country.

China is promoting the yuan as an alternative to the dollar for global trade and finance and the PBOC has signed currency-swap agreements with 28 other central banks to encourage this.

Technology giant Apple says it cannot sell products online in Russia because the rouble's value is too volatile for it to set prices.