Synopsys is one of two key American companies that dominate the global market in software for designing advanced chips. The Mountain View, Calif.–based company is a choke point that U.S. regulators turn to when they seek to cut off a country’s or company’s ability to create its own chips, as American officials did with Huawei starting in 2019 and, more recently, with Russia after its invasion of Ukraine.

All of this makes CEO Aart de Geus’ observations on the looming fragmentation of globally interdependent technology markets unusually sharp. In an interview with The Information, De Geus, a 67-year-old native of the Netherlands who was raised in Switzerland, said the swift and remarkable technological isolation of Russia was justified.