US Blocks Companies Helping With Chinese Quantum Computing Efforts

The US government has added eight Chinese technology companies to its Entity List. With this, the US wants to prevent ’emerging’ US technology from being used to support China’s military quantum computing efforts.

Companies that are on this blacklist will be banned from trading with America. This should make it more difficult for these Chinese companies to gain access to American equipment for use in quantum computing for military applications. The US wants to prevent China from using “emerging American technologies” to break encryption, or to create unbreakable encryption. In other military applications, the development of anti-stealth and anti-submarine systems are mentioned as examples.

A total of 27 companies and individuals will be added to the Entity List. In addition to China, there are also entities from Japan, Pakistan and Singapore. Sixteen of these are listed “on the basis of their contributions to Pakistan’s ‘unsecured’ nuclear activities or ballistic missile program.” All of the companies on the list, according to the US, are engaged in activities that are contrary to national security or US foreign policy interests.

China does not agree with the addition of its companies to the list and may take countermeasures against the sanctions, Reuters reports. According to the Chinese embassy, ​​America is using “national security” as an excuse “to abuse state power by suppressing and limiting Chinese companies by all means possible.”

The US is regularly expanding its Entity List. Earlier this year, seven Chinese supercomputer manufacturers were added to the list. The Israeli NSO Group has also been banned from trading, as have more than a hundred companies related to the Chinese smartphone manufacturer Huawei.