The U.S. Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security today added seven Chinese supercomputing entities to its Entity List for conducting activities that are contrary to national security and foreign policy interests.

The entities added to the list, which prevents them from obtaining advanced technologies developed in the U.S. without special permission, are Tianjin Phytium Information Technology Co. Ltd., Shanghai High-Performance Integrated Circuit Design Center, Shenzen Sunway Micro-electronics Co. Ltd., 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, the entities are involved with building supercomputers used by China’s military actors, its destabilizing military modernization efforts or weapons of mass destruction programs.

“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,” U.S. Secretary of Commerce Gina M. Raimondo said in a statement. “The Department of Commerce will use the full extent of its authorities to prevent China from leveraging U.S. technologies to support these destabilizing military modernization efforts.”

Of those on the list, Tianjin Phytium and Sunway are arguably the best-known because they design central processing units.

Reuters reported that the rules take effect immediately but do not apply to goods from U.S. suppliers already en route. Companies or others on the Entity List can apply for licenses from the Commerce Department to obtain supplies but face strict scrutiny. Given the seriousness of the allegations against the newly listed entities, such as the development of nuclear weapons, approval is unlikely to be given.

This isn’t the first action of this type against Chinese entities. The best-known among those that have been added to the Entity List include Huawei Technology Co. Ltd., Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp. and SZ DJI Technology Co., Ltd. ZTE Corp. had previously been on the list as well, but after making changes the ban was lifted in 2018.

Image: Sunway