U.S. to speed up export licenses for supercomputers

From...

July 17, 2000
Web posted at: 10:55 a.m. EDT (1455 GMT)

by Elinor Abreu

(IDG) -- The Senate Wednesday voted 86-11 to shorten the period that manufacturers have to wait to get approval to export supercomputers from six months to 60 days. The House has already approved a similar measure. President Clinton had sought to speed things further with a 30-day waiting period.

MORE COMPUTING INTELLIGENCE

IDG.net home page

The Standard.com

TechInformer: The Thinking Internaut's Guide to the Tech Industry

Supercomputers hailed

Deal extends supercomputing access

Reviews & in-depth info at IDG.net

E-BusinessWorld

Industry Standard email newsletters

Questions about computers? Let IDG.net's editors help you

Industry Standard daily Media Grok

Search IDG.net in 12 languages

News Radio

Fusion audio primers

Computerworld Minute

"Some in Congress were concerned we might be liberalizing controls too quickly," said William A. Reinsch, undersecretary of commerce for the Export Administration. However, he said, 60 days is reasonable, especially given that "weapons sales only have to lay over in Congress for 30 days."

Clinton is likely to loosen restrictions on supercomputer exports even further, by allowing supercomputers to be exported without a license. Currently, an export license is required to ship computers with processing speeds of about 12,000 millions of theoretical operations per second, or MTOPS, to certain countries.

"We're looking at what level of MTOPS is appropriate to control" given technology advances, Reinsch said Wednesday. "We're also looking at a more long-term solution than changing the MTOPS level every six months." An announcement on that could come before the end of the year, he added.

Meanwhile, Reinsch's office is preparing to release to the industry this week a draft proposal that would bring the U.S. encryption export policies more in line with European Union regulations. "They have fewer restrictions on sales to governments than we do," Reinsch said of the EU.

Under current U.S. law, companies don't need a license to export retail encryption products to most countries, but they are required to obtain a license to ship customized encryption software to governments of other countries. The EU allows export without a license if the products are going to any of 25 governments, which include the 15 EU countries, the U.S. and nine others.

"We committed in January that we would address this. If we don't do it, it will be very serious," Reinsch said. "Sales to government represent between 20 [percent] and 30 percent of the total market."

U.S. Senate backs shorter review for computer exports
July 12, 2000
Asia's first online casino to open virtual doors
July 6, 2000
Vietnam's government ponders knowledge economy
June 27, 2000
African IT leaders prepare for summit
June 20, 2000
Gates touts Next-Gen Windows at World Congress
June 14, 2000

IBM creates fastest supercomputer
(IDG.net)
U.S. Dept. of Energy awaits IBM 12.3-teraflop supercomputer
(IDG.net)
Supercomputers hailed
(InfoWorld)
Tera to acquire SGI's Cray supercomputer unit
(IDG.net)
IBM claims Europe's fastest supercomputer
(IDG.net)
Deal extends supercomputing access
(FCW)
Supercomputers for the rest of us
(PC World)
Toyota acquires world's most advanced supercomputer
(IDG.net)