Effects on Technology Export

Discussing the effects of 50-year-old regulations on the super computer industry. Established in 1949, technology export controls were meant to prevent potentially devastating technology from reaching the Soviet bloc countries from outside. The Soviet bloc countries no longer exist in their previous form, and most of the developed nations of the world have supercomputers in place, and the primary effect of export controls is that of stifling competition in the industry and maintaining prices at artificially high levels. The industry within the US also suffers from anti-dumping laws heavily weighted in US favor; the combined effect of both is that we are prevented from realizing the benefits offered by supercomputer application because of the resulting limited competition allowed. The paper advocates eliminating the anti-dumping laws and reforming export control to restrict only nuclear weapon components rather than a single tool that could be used in their construction.