China's Government, State-Backed Firms to Scrap Foreign PCs Within Two Years

upstart writes:

China's Government, State-Backed Firms to Scrap Foreign PCs Within Two Years:

In a bid to support local PC makers and software developers and reduce the impact of any potential future sanctions from western governments, China's government this week reiterated its order to replace foreign-branded PCs and programs used by government agencies and state-backed companies with local technology within two years.

While replacing a Dell running Windows with a Lenovo running Linux sounds tempting for Chinese companies, it looks like the country has been failing to do so up to this point, but the renewed initiative appears to have more teeth.

Chinese central government authorities this week ordered government agencies and state-owned and state-backed firms to stop using foreign-branded computers and software within two years and replace them with locally developed hardware and software, reports Bloomberg. Eventually, the mandatory program will be extended to provincial governments and give them a two-year switch period. The aggressive plan requires the replacement of at least 50 million PCs used by central government agencies alone, notes the report.

There are several reasons why the Chinese government wants the country to switch to local technologies. Firstly, it wants to keep Chinese money in China and not see it headed to foreign companies. Secondly, after learning from the Huawei crackdown lesson, it wants to ensure that it does not rely on technology developed and built elsewhere. Specifically, technology that could be barred from being imported to China. Thirdly, it wants to strengthen the security of its agencies and commercial entities.

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