China's mega dam Xiluodu stops using Western industrial chips over security concerns
leading Chinese industrial chip supplier
Loongson Technology said that the dam, located on the Jinsha River at the junction of the southwestern Yunnan and Sichuan provinces, had replaced long-standing foreign 'programmable logic controllers' (PLCs) – from German giant Siemens and French firm Schneider Electric – with a domestically developed system powered by fully home-grown Loongson 3C6000 processors.
The change follows growing alarm over vulnerabilities in industrial control systems – highlighted by historic cyberattacks via computer worms like the Stuxnet virus, which allegedly exploited Siemens PLCs to sabotage Iran's nuclear programme more than a decade ago.
The South China Morning Post has reached out to Siemens and Schneider for comment.
Xiluodu is the third-largest hydropower station in China, after the Three Gorges Dam and the Baihetan Dam, and the fourth-largest in the world.
With nine units of 770 megawatt turbine generators on each bank, it has a total installed capacity of 13.86 gigawatts.
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