Russian industry faces code crisis as critical software pulled

Foreign software is often baked directly into industrial machinery and controls high-precision processes. Equipment makers closely guard their intellectual property and in many cases don’t give clients access to the codes used to run their plants, Sergey Dunaev, the chief information officer of Severstal PJSC, said in an interview. — Photo by Pixabay: https://www.pexels.com/photo/software-engineers-working-on-computers-256219/

Russia’s reliance on foreign software to run its factories, farms and oil fields is turning into one of the biggest headaches for domestic industry as more IT providers pull out of the market in response to President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.

International sanctions and tensions over the war have forced industrial manufacturers from Siemens AG to SMS Group GmbH to wind down operations in what was once one of their biggest markets. Their computer programs might be missed more than their machines.