The US has upped the pressure on Chinese technology companies by blacklisting seven supercomputing firms from the world’s second largest economy.
Yesterday, the US Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security added seven Chinese supercomputing firms to the entity list for “conducting activities that are contrary to the national security or foreign policy interests of the United States”.
The seven companies are Tianjin Phytium Information Technology, Shanghai High-Performance Integrated Circuit Design Centre, Sunway Microelectronics, the National Supercomputing Center Jinan, the National Supercomputing Center Shenzhen, the National Supercomputing Center Wuxi, and the National Supercomputing Center Zhengzhou.
According to the commerce department, these entities are involved with building supercomputers used by China’s military actors, destabilising military modernisation efforts, and/or weapons of mass destruction programmes.
The US government under former president Donald Trump blacklisted several leading Chinese tech companies, accusing them of posing “national security” threats because of their alleged close ties with the Chinese government.
These allegations have from time to time been refuted by the companies.
Now, the Biden administration is also tightening the noose on Chinese tech companies, which, it believes, if left unchecked, will result in China overtaking the US as the world’s biggest economy.
Commenting on the blacklisting of the seven supercomputing companies, US secretary of commerce Gina M Raimondo says: “Supercomputing capabilities are vital for the development of many – perhaps almost all – modern weapons and national security systems, such as nuclear weapons and hypersonic weapons.
“The Department of Commerce will use the full extent of its authorities to prevent China from leveraging US technologies to support these destabilising military modernisation efforts.”
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