While the United States has recently tightened restrictions on chip-related exports to China, some entities in the country have been on an export blacklist for decades. One of these is China’s leading nuclear-weapons research institute, but that hasn’t stopped it from purchasing Intel and Nvidia hardware on a regular basis.
Because of its work in the field of nuclear weapons, the state-run China Academy of Engineering Physics (CAEP) was one of the first to be placed on a US export blacklist in 1997, preventing it from purchasing American technology. However, according to a Wall Street Journal report, the institute has obtained US hardware for use in academy computers at least a dozen times since 2020, including Intel’s Xeon Gold processors and Nvidia’s GeForce RTX graphics cards.
Intel and Nvidia were unable to sell their products directly to the CAEP, so the institute purchased them from Chinese marketplaces such as Taobao, Aliexpress, and other resellers.
A WSJ review of CAEP-published research papers found at least 34 that used American semiconductors in their research over the last decade. CAEP physicists contributed to the development of the country’s first hydrogen bomb. The laboratory studies computational fluid dynamics, a broad scientific field that includes modelling nuclear explosions.
The revelation highlights the difficulties in enforcing US export controls on China. Nvidia claims that because there are millions of PCs sold worldwide, it cannot control where its products end up. Intel stated that it adheres to export regulations and sanctions, as must its distributors and customers.
According to the Department of Defense, China has accelerated its nuclear weapons development in recent years. The People’s Liberation Army currently has over 400 warheads, which could increase to around 1,500 by 2035 if current expansion rates continue.
With export restrictions in place, China has been attempting to develop its own chips, a plan that the US is attempting to thwart by prohibiting the sale of advanced chipmaking tools to the Asian country. The Biden administration recently reached an agreement with the Netherlands and Japan to implement their own export controls on chipmaking equipment to China.
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