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China’s mega dam Xiluodu stops using Western industrial chips over security concerns
Shift from Siemens and Schneider reflects concerns over industrial control system vulnerabilities, including computer worms like Stuxnet
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China’s Xiluodu Dam – one of the world’s largest hydropower stations – has fully transitioned away from Western-made industrial control chips over national security and supply chain resilience concerns, according to a 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.
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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.
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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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