- Inspur units among 80 entities included in export ban list.
- 50 units based in China, rest are in Pakistan, UAE, Taiwan, etc.
- Beijing firmly opposes politicisation, weasponisation of tech.
WASHINGTON: The United States has added six subsidiaries of Inspur Group, China’s leading cloud computing and big data service provider, and dozens of other Chinese entities to its export restriction list — some of which are also based in Pakistan.
The Inspur units were listed for contributing to the development of supercomputers for the Chinese military, the Commerce department said in a posting. Five of the subsidiaries are based in China and one in Taiwan. Inspur Group itself was placed on the list in 2023.
The Inspur units are among about 80 companies and institutes added to the export control list Tuesday. Over 50 are based in China, whereas others are in Taiwan, Iran, Pakistan, South Africa and the United Arab Emirates.
The listings are intended to restrict China’s ability to develop high-performance computing capabilities, quantum technologies and advanced AI, and impede Beijing’s development of its hypersonic weapons programme.
“We will not allow adversaries to exploit American technology to bolster their own militaries and threaten American lives,” said Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick.
Meanwhile, the Chinese embassy in Washington said on Tuesday that it “firmly oppose these acts taken by the US and demand that it immediately stop using military-related issues as pretexts to politicise, instrumentalise and weaponise trade and tech issues”.
It is to be noted that the US adds companies to the Commerce department’s Entity List for national security or foreign policy concerns which then cannot sell goods to those listed without applying for and obtaining licenses, which are likely to be denied.
Commerce official Jeffrey Kessler said the administration aims to prevent “US technologies and goods from being misused for high-performance computing, hypersonic missiles, military aircraft training, and UAVs [drones] that threaten our national security.”
The Inspur Group did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Nvidia declined to comment, and AMD did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Chinese firms Nettrix Information Industry Co, Suma Technology Co, and Suma-USI Electronics, are among the other companies added to the list.
The US said they were added to help develop Chinese exascale supercomputers, which can process vast amounts of data at very high speeds and conduct large-scale simulations.
The companies also have provided manufacturing capabilities to Sugon, also known as Dawning Information Industry Co, a computer server manufacturer added to the Entity List in 2019 for building supercomputers used by the military, the Commerce Department said.
The companies could not immediately be reached for comment.
Other companies were added to the list for acquiring US-origin items to advance China’s quantum technology capabilities, and for selling products to companies who supply other listed parties, including Huawei, the tech conglomerate viewed as at the centre of China’s AI ambitions.
