Five Chinese supercomputer firms placed on US blacklist, including AMD partner Higon

Concern over potential military applications of supercomputers behind the ban, US Government says

The US Commerce Department has placed five more Chinese firms on its Entity List. This announcement followings the inclusion of telecom giant Huawei and subsidiaries on the US blacklist last month.

The latest additions to the Entity List are all involved in the design of supercomputers. They are Higon, Chengdu Haiguang Integrated Circuit, Chengdu Haiguang Microelectronics Technology, Sugon and Wuxi Jiangnan Institute of Computing Technology. US companies are banned from trading with the listed firms.

The US Commerce Department, which has a remit to promote economic growth of the USA, said that the firms listed "pose a significant risk of being or becoming involved in activities contrary to the national security and foreign policy interests of the United States". The stated reasoning for the ban is concern about the military applications of the supercomputers.

President Trump is set to discuss the ongoing trade dispute with Chinese leader Xi Jinping at the G-20 summit later this month, and the Entity List is likely to be discussed at that meeting.

One of the listed companies is semiconductor manufacturer Higon, which is perhaps best known in the West for its partnership with US chip vendor AMD.

On its website, the US Bureau of Industry and Security describes the Entity List's original purpose, when it was first published in 1997, as part of its efforts to "inform the public of entities who have engaged in activities that could result in an increased risk of the diversion of exported, re-exported and transferred (in-country) items to weapons of mass destruction (WMD) programs."

However, its scope has since expanded to include "activities sanctioned by the State Department and activities contrary to US national security and/or foreign policy interests", which are the grounds for the most recent inclusions, plus that of Huawei last month.

In Huawei's case the US granted an extension to the grace period until August 17^th. As Computing reported yesterday, Microsoft and Intel will officially support updates for Huawei devices despite its initial inclusion on the Entity List in May.