Chinese and American flags fluttered outside the building of a US company in Beijing, China on January 21, 2021.
Tingshue Wang | Reuters
WASHINGTON – The Department of Commerce on Thursday added seven Chinese supercomputer units to a U.S. economic blacklist, citing national security issues.
The department has blacklisted Tianjin Phytium Information Technology, Shanghai High-Performance Integrated Circuit Design Center, Sunway Microelectronics, Jinan National Supercomputing Center, Shenzhen National Supercomputing Center, Wuxi National Supercomputing Center and Zhengzhou National Supercomputing Center.
The seven entities have been blacklisted for ‘building supercomputers used by China’s military actors, the destabilizing military modernization efforts and / or weapons of mass destruction’s.
U.S. officials have long complained that Chinese companies are being held in the People’s Republic of China and gathering sensitive information on behalf of the People’s Liberation Army. The Chinese Communist Party said earlier that it was not engaged in industrial espionage.
“Supercomputer capabilities are essential for the development of many – perhaps almost all – modern weapons and national security systems, such as nuclear weapons and hypersonic weapons,” US Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo said in a statement.
“The Department of Commerce will use the full scope of its authorities to prevent China from using US technologies to support these destabilizing military modernization efforts,” she added.
The new rules, which restrict U.S. exports to the entities involved, take effect immediately. However, this does not apply to goods from US suppliers that are already on the way.
The Chinese embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a request for comment from CNBC.
Under former President Donald Trump, the US added a number of Chinese companies to its economic blacklist, including the country’s leading smartphone maker Huawei, the best chipmaker SMIC and the largest manufacturer of drones, SZ DJI Technology.