"Bobyor" on a diet: what is the future of the new Russian personal computer

Ivan Zubov

Two days ago, a cheerful message appeared in Russian news agencies that the domestic nuclear power industry is switching to domestic electronics, and Rosenergoatom employees have already started testing personal computers with the strange name Bobyor (it can be translated as "beaver", - editor's note), working on the basis of the infamous Baikal processor.

According to Rosatom, which is referenced by TASS, if the tests are successful, computers will begin to be introduced into the company's infrastructure.

"The transition to domestic processors is an important step to ensure the proper level of technological independence in such sensitive strategic areas as the nuclear industry", - said Oleg Shalnov, head of Rosenergoatom's IT Project and Integration Management Department.

It is also reported that the Bobyor was certified by the Ministry of Industry and Trade more than a year ago, and its characteristics can be seen here.

The strange names of domestic electronic products have already been appreciated on social networks (in truth, the name is not much that is domestic in them):

"At least, Rosatom's marketers can not be afraid that artificial intelligence will replace them — neural networks will not have enough imagination for such naming".

- But earlier the names were more witty: CBT "Pinocchio", T-72-120 "Banana" tank, grenade launcher-pistol "Woodpecker", rubber bullet "Hello".

And network analyst Ilya Vaitsman rightly doubts the prospects of this idea:

"Okay, we will omit the questions of the adequacy of branding and naming, these words are unfriendly. Maybe the designers were gnawing birch trees out of grief? No matter. The nuance is different: they are on Baikal processors!! No, the processors themselves are not bad (although not for personal computers), Linux on ARM is also a good solution, no doubt. But these processors have not been produced for almost a year. They were baked at TSMC, in Taiwan, and after the outbreak of the war, they sent customers from the Russian Federation in a certain direction. And with "Baikal", and with God forgive me, "Elbrus".

So test it, don't test it - it will end with what they managed to bring before their own, and that's it. Bobik (sorry, "Bobyor") is dead. I understand the desire to add inventory somewhere, but this is a dead-end solution, there are no prospects.

P.S. I remember they promised to show the Russian 28 nm technical process in five years (so much is needed for Baikal), but:

a). there are big doubts about what they will do;

b) ideally, commodity batches of such processors will appear no earlier than 2030-2032, when they will become completely obsolete. However, they won't appear, of course".