Supercomputer export ease

[John Young <jya@pipeline.com>]

   WSJ, Oct 6, 1995.


   U.S. Export Rules to Ease On Some Supercomputers


   Washington -- President Clinton is expected to announce
   today that he is easing export restrictions on certain U.S.
   supercomputers, a move sought by the computer industry.

   Administration officials say that given continuing
   technological advances and world-wide availability of many
   high-speed computers, the current restrictions are
   unrealistic and damaging to American companies. Critics
   contend, however, that easing the restrictions will
   exacerbate weapons proliferation.

   Mr. Clinton approved raising the speed of computers that
   may be exported to most countries to 2,000 million
   theoretical operations a second, or MTOPS, from 1,500
   MTOPS, according to officials. For certain nations,
   including China, Egypt, Israel, India, Pakistan, Syria and
   Russia, civilian customers would be able to buy computers
   with speeds up to 7,000 MTOPS without prior government
   approval. Military customers in those countries could
   purchase computers with speeds of 2,000 to 7,000 MTOPS but
   only with an individual export license.

   Certain nations, such as Iran, Iraq, North Korea and Libya,
   would still be banned from buying high-speed computers.

   [End]