How to ensure technology sovereignty

Western sanctions have opened up inexhaustible niches for Belarusian manufacturers of high-tech products

Let’s be honest: sanctions have hit technological development hard. Still, many enterprises, to one degree or another, focused on broad international co-operation. On the other hand, a vast sales market has opened up for high-tech industries and research organisations. And not only at the moment, but for
a fairly long period. Today, the issue of both technological development and technological safety is at the forefront throughout the world. And this strategy has become the driver for our high-tech industries and segments to reach a new qualitative level.

Don’t get lost in the future

Technology largely determines a country’s competitiveness. Many analytical and expert organisations (both international and national) are trying to identify the most promising areas on which to concentrate their efforts.
In some details, these forecasts differ, but in general, a global consensus has emerged: the highest priority vectors are nanotechnology and new materials, microelectronics, breakthrough algorithms for working with big data (BigData), and biotechnology.
Of course, scientific and technological development requires its own scale. Belarus is a relatively small country. Therefore, let’s be objective, it is unlikely that it will be possible to become a world leader in the intellectual sphere for objective reasons. Nevertheless, we can unequivocally say that we will not get lost in the future, an extremely difficult and complex world. Because we have our own developments
in all promising areas. Some of them are world class. The diversity of scientific research allows us to be confident that technological safety is not a figure of speech, but a completely achievable result for us.
To a large extent, today’s sustainability is the result of predictive government policy, thanks to which both fundamental and applied science in all its diversity have been preserved in the country. No matter how difficult it was at the beginning of our sovereign path, the state did not allow a single research area to perish.

Design sovereignty

The diversity of Belarusian scientific, research and production activities has allowed our country to survive the restrictions quite calmly and confidently. First of all, due to the fact that the design school has been preserved and developed in Belarus. Indeed, let’s not boast: we cannot produce everything. There is not always enough technological and production base.

But skill sets in a wide range of scientific fields, coupled with design schools, made it possible to quickly reorient to alternative suppliers of components, assemblies and components. At least those that we could not immediately release and replace with our own efforts. Or in partnership with Russian colleagues. 
It turned out that globalisation can develop not only in a European or American direction, but also in an Asian direction. Therefore, after a certain period of turbulence in the market of high-tech products, it quickly stabilised. 

Tatyana Stolyarova 

Executive Director of the Association of Electronics Developers and Manufacturers (Russia) Ivan Pokrovsky presented a chronology of events in numbers. If in February – March 2022 we had to deal with a boycott of foreign suppliers, there were supply interruptions and ‘eating up’ of available warehouse stocks, then in the second half of the year both delivery times and prices for electronic components stabilised. Both new and old suppliers entered the market, but through ‘parallel import’ tools. 
In a number of areas, we more or less successfully switched to components from friendly countries. For example, some Belarusian machine tool enterprises have switched to using computer numerical control (CNC) systems from the Russian company BaltSystem.

We can a lot

Undoubtedly, the prompt transition to new suppliers and prompt co-operation with partners from friendly states allowed the Belarusian and Russian economies to survive and develop. This in itself is a significant achievement.
However, it is too early to rest on our laurels. After all, technological safety assumes that domestic solutions and technologies will be used in strategically important industries and critical systems. At least they will be their basis.
In the Union State, more than two dozen companies are engaged in the production of electronic components. Far from the last place in the union industry is occupied by our Integral, the management company of the Integral holding. The company has developed a unique scientific and design school.
Indeed, the Belarusian company works in design standards of 0.3 microns and higher. There are attempts to master smaller sizes. Demand for these products accounts for about a third of the microchip market. In addition, any segment of design standards does not stand still; it develops and deepens technologically. 
Planar, a manufacturer of lithographic installations for the production of photo masks, operates in Belarus.

Before the aggravation of the international situation, many developed countries bought Belarusian equipment. Including American corporations. Such equipment is produced by only four companies in the world: Japanese Canon and Nikon, Dutch ASML (although the corporation is controlled by American capital) and our Belarusian Planar.

We also have good control, measuring and some other equipment for microelectronics. These enterprises are developing and reaching new technological frontiers. If in the past times of ‘open market doors’ there was always doubt that there would be a decent demand for their products, today these fears are absent.

Aleksandr Kushner 

With maximum safety

Belarus and Russia have developed a clear course towards achieving technological safety. What does it mean? There are up to 70 thousand critical information infrastructure facilities in the Union State. These are objects directly related to security. And for now they are largely equipped with foreign electronics. Or, for example, technological equipment.
In Belarus alone, the fleet of CNC machines exceeds 10 thousand units. Again, most of them are imported. The capacity of the Russian market is about 20 thousand units of metalworking equipment per year.

Aleksandr Kushner 

Before the conflict in Ukraine worsened, 80-90 percent of this demand was met through imports. This is the widest niche. Of course, our manufacturers cannot increase production volumes even if there is demand. Neither in microelectronics nor in machine tool building. Undoubtedly, some market share will be ‘closed’ by imports. Naturally, first of all from friendly states and strategic partners. But a certain strategic segment will definitely remain with our manufacturers.

By Vladimir Volchkov