The Department of Commerce has restricted four China-based commercial entities and one institute from buying high-performance computing parts from the U.S. just over a month after President Trump issued an executive order banning Chinese telecommunications equipment over national security risks, the Wall Street Journal reported Friday.
Sugon of Beijing and its Higon, Chengdu Haiguang Microelectronics Technology and Chengdu Haiguang Integrated Circuit affiliates were added to the U.S. trade blacklist. The department also banned Wuxi Jiangnan Institute of Computing Technology, which operates under the Chinese Army’s 56th Research Institute of the General Staff and supports military modernization efforts of the country.
The White House ordered domestic agencies and contractors to stop procuring equipment from Huawei and 68 of its affiliates last month. According to the report, the department issued the new export restrictions ahead of a possible meeting between Chinese President Xi Jinping and President Trump at the G20 Summit later this week.
The Trump administration also seeks to reduce the number of licenses U.S. companies can grant to hire Chinese nationals for engineering projects. China hopes to build an exascale computer with a speed rate of one quintillion calculations per second and dominate the global supercomputing field.