Thanks to Electronics Weekly for another powerful electronics PR story to come out of CES 2014. Intel CEO Brian Krzanich’s statement that the company will no longer use minerals mined in conflict zones to build its microprocessors.

The industry has been under increasing international pressure for some time to investigate the sources of raw materials, given that most electronic devices contain either gold, tantalum, tin, or tungsten, much of which originates from sub-Saharan African countries like the Democratic Republic of Congo and is mined in conditions of armed conflict and human rights abuses.

As far as I’m aware Intel is the first big name to do the necessary due diligence into its supply chain and make a public claim that its chips are conflict-mineral free.

This is a big issue for the electronics industry but especially big respect to Intel for choosing CES as the huge public platform to make this announcement. It’s brave to raise this uncomfortable human rights issue at a show where most people are only interested in being brainwashed by glitz, glamour and the latest shiny new gadgets.

photo credit: IntelFreePress