The North Korean computer appears to be assembled with parts sourced from Taiwan, USA

Water-cooled computer made by Achim Computer of North Korea (Screenshot from Korea DPR Foreign Trade)

The water-cooled computer from North Korean tech company Achim Computer appears to include parts made in Taiwan and the United States.

North Korea named Achim Computer one of the country’s top 10 IT companies last year.

In the photos of Achim Computer’s sixth-generation water-cooled Core i5 and Core i3 computers on North Korea’s “DPR Korea Foreign Trade” website, the word “INWIN” is clearly written on the case .

INWIN is a Taiwan-based global computer hardware manufacturer and one of the leading manufacturers of computer cases.

The Core i5 seems to use an INWIN 303 case. The position of the power button and logos are identical, as are the number and types of sockets.

The Core i3 case looks quite similar to the INWIN 805 TG3.0 Black. The position and number of sockets, the position of the cooling fan, and the layout of the power supply and storage devices are the same.

Achim Computer’s “Achim” logo was placed on the front of both computers.

PC case by INWIN of Taiwan (left), PC of Achim Computer (right) (captures from INWIN and DPR Korea foreign trade websites)

It should also be noted that the Core i3 uses the VS-450 power supply. The VS-450 is made by Corsair, a hardware and peripherals company based in Fremont, California.

The “Core i3” and “Core i5” in computer names also refer to processors from the American company Intel. The desktop Core i3 used an Intel Core i3-6100 3.4㎓ processor, while the water-cooled Core i5 processor is not specified.

Achim Computer would be a joint venture with Chinese Panda Electronics, an electronics manufacturer based in Nanjing. As the Chinese side apparently provides the necessary parts while the North Korean side assembles and sells the products, it is possible that the parts mentioned on the website were provided by the Chinese side.

PC case by INWIN of Taiwan (left), PC of Achim Computer (right) (captures from INWIN and DPR Korea foreign trade websites)

United Nations Security Council Resolution 2397, passed in December 2017, bans the export of industrial metals, machinery and electrical equipment to North Korea.

Despite international sanctions, North Korea appears to be importing parts overseas for use in manufacturing electronics.

Since North Korea has not specified when it released the products on the website, it is unclear whether these represent the company’s latest items. However, since the computers use sixth-generation Intel Core I-series processors released in 2015 and power supplies released in 2014, they don’t appear to be the latest items.

It is also possible that since North Korea is unable to import the latest computer parts due to international sanctions, the country is assembling computers from old parts to sell in the domestic market.

Translated by David Black. Edited by Robert Lauler.

Please direct any comments or questions regarding this article to [email protected].

read in korean

Comments are closed.