Executive Summary

Despite U.S. sanctions imposed in 2015, which aimed to restrict China's access to supercomputing capabilities, U.S. university researchers funded by the Department of Defense (DoD), along with researchers from Argonne (ANL), Oak Ridge (ORNL), and Los Alamos (LANL) National Laboratories, have continued to publish research findings using Chinese National Supercomputer Centers (NSCCs) that are listed on the Department of Commerce’s Entity List. This ongoing collaboration highlights challenges in enforcing these restrictions effectively.

Many co-researchers from the referenced scientific studies are affiliated with Chinese institutions that have clear ties to the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT), and other state-run defense and strategic national programs. Notably, the National University of Defense Technology (NUDT), which reports directly to the Central Military Commission, has been the primary developer and manager of the TianHe-series supercomputers. These systems have been specifically implicated in activities that raise concerns about their use in defense and strategic contexts.

By merging U.S. expertise and research funding with PRC supercomputing resources—particularly the TianHe-series supercomputers in Tianjin and Guangzhou—these collaborations risk circumventing the 2015 restrictions, enabling unintended technology transfers, and undermining the sanctions’ intended effect of restraining PLA weapons of mass destruction (WMD) program advancements. An analysis of over 100 research papers from 2016 to 2024 reveals extensive collaboration between Chinese research institutions and U.S. universities funded by the DoD—including Los Alamos, Oak Ridge, and Argonne National Laboratories—with many papers explicitly referencing the TianHe-1, TianHe-1A, and TianHe-2 systems. This ongoing engagement exposes gaps in U.S. sanctions enforcement and, building on the Daily Caller News Foundation’s original investigation, this report expands the findings through independent analysis.