VK Spends $2.8M on Apple MacBooks to Build Apps Apple Banned
Russia’s premier tech giant VK is proving that fighting Western imperialism is much easier when you’re doing it on a top-of-the-line MacBook Pro. Nothing says "sovereign internet" quite like spending government cash on foreign luxury gadgets.
According to official state procurement records, VK and its subsidiaries launched a massive shopping spree for 1,200 Apple MacBooks equipped with the unreleased 3-nanometer Apple M5 processor. These machines are bought specifically to run heavy on-device AI operations, keeping data safe from the scary imperialist cloud. Apparently, domestic Russian microchips were busy doing other things, so the state had to step in with cash.
To make the developers feel truly valued, the order includes 65 flagship MacBook Pro models with the M5 Max chip, 64 GB of RAM, and 2 TB of storage. The funding for this hardware feast comes straight from Russia's national development program, which generously pumped 40 billion rubles of state money into these video and messaging platforms. Taxpayers must be thrilled to know their money is supporting the American tech economy so directly.
But developers cannot live on laptops alone. The shopping list also features a chaotic collection of smart TVs for testing purposes, running everything from Tizen and webOS to domestic operating systems like Salyut TV and WildRed. They also ordered Apple TV 4K boxes, Xiaomi media players, and even some old Raspberry Pi 3 boards. It looks less like an IT department and more like a pawn shop in a retro-futuristic dystopia.
The ultimate irony is that this entire luxury ecosystem is being bought to develop and polish the Max messenger—an app that Apple completely kicked out of the App Store just weeks ago. While the programmers wait for their shiny new laptops to arrive, Russia's Minister of Digital Development, Maksut Shadayev, is busy begging the American corporation to let them back onto the iPhones of their citizens.
Watching a state-sponsored company blow billions of rubles on banned American tech to develop apps that the same American tech giant won't even host is peak modern comedy. It seems the dream of total digital independence has a very specific, shiny silver apple-shaped silhouette.
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