Since that initial effort, the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) has been pretty busy adding 80 organizations to its “entity list.” Over half of these folks are based in China. This move prevents US firms from shipping technologies to these groups without government licenses. The unprecedented move comes as part of the US government’s ongoing effort to limit Beijing’s access to critical and emerging technologies.
This is the first time that the Commerce Department has specifically targeted these Chinese entities for allegedly operating against U.S. national security and foreign policy interests. The department is amplifying restrictions on Beijing’s access to this nation’s most powerful computing technology, called exascale, which processes massive amounts of data at stunning speeds. They’re going after organizations believed to be creating cutting-edge AI for military applications.
Jeffrey I. Kessler, Under Secretary of Commerce for Industry and Security, emphasized the agency's commitment to preventing U.S. technologies from being used by certain entities.
The entity list is one of many powerful tools at our disposal to identify and cut off foreign adversaries seeking to exploit American technology for malign purposes. - Jeffrey I. Kessler, Under Secretary of Commerce for Industry and Security
Furthering this logic, earlier in 2023, the Joe Biden administration blacklisted six subsidiaries of the Chinese cloud-computing firm Inspur Group. These companies all featured in the most recent additions to the blacklist. Moreover, of the five companies mentioned above, two were blacklisted because they provided technology to sanctioned organizations including Huawei and its subsidiary semiconductor manufacturer HiSilicon.
Most recently, the U.S. blacklisted 27 Chinese entities for procuring U.S.-origin items to advance China’s military modernization goals. Further, they penalized seven companies for promoting China’s quantum technology development.
