The Department of Defense (DOD) and Department of Energy (DOE) have funded more than 100 research projects using Chinese government supercomputers sanctioned by the U.S. for collaborating with China’s military, a Daily Caller News Foundation investigation found.
The DCNF compared federally-funded research project reports against entities sanctioned by the U.S. Department of Commerce (DOC). The DCNF identified 102 projects, primarily conducted through U.S. national labs, involving at least one of five sanctioned Chinese supercomputer centers in Beijing, Changsha, Guangzhou, Shenzhen and Tianjin.
While it’s unclear what information may have been shared with the sanctioned supercomputers, intelligence analysts and lawmakers say the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is committed to weaponizing research with dual civilian and military applications.
“It is unacceptable that federally-funded researchers continue to use Chinese supercomputing centers that have been blacklisted for supporting China’s military buildup,” Michigan Republican Rep. John Moolenaar, chairman of the House Select Committee on the CCP, told the DCNF. “These systems have been instrumental in China’s hypersonic missile research, nuclear weapons development, and other strategic capabilities that directly threaten U.S. national security. The use of these centers by American researchers poses serious risks of U.S. technology transfer and cyber exploitation.”
Additionally, some research projects included China-based co-authors belonging to other sanctioned institutes serving the Chinese military, such as universities subordinate to China’s Central Military Commission.
Spokesmen for Argonne, Los Alamos, and Oak Ridge national laboratories told the DCNF their personnel had not used the sanctioned CCP supercomputers. Yet, when asked directly if the research projects involved China-based co-authors who had used the sanctioned Chinese supercomputers, the spokesmen did not respond.
DOD and DOE did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
The DOC sanctioned the Chinese supercomputing centers in question for “activities contrary to the national security and foreign policy interests of the United States” related to China’s weapons of mass destruction programs. The sanctions prohibit items of U.S. origin from being exported to the listed entities.
However, L.J. Eads, a former U.S. Air Force intelligence analyst, said there’s a major loophole in U.S. export control regulations that national labs seem to be exploiting.
“One major loophole is that while U.S. export controls restrict direct access, Chinese researchers can still exploit U.S. research by having China-based collaborators run simulations on sanctioned supercomputers,” Eads told the DCNF. “This loophole also allows DOD and DOE researchers to circumvent restrictions by outsourcing computations to China, which poses serious national security risks.”
‘Military-Civil Fusion’
After reviewing the DCNF’s findings, Eads said the majority of identified research projects relying on sanctioned Chinese supercomputers have both civilian and military applications, such as space weather modeling, which impacts satellite communications as well as “ballistic-missile early warning radar systems,” according to the U.S. Space Force.
Supercomputers are orders of magnitude faster than conventional computing technology, and, thus, are used to perform complex calculations, such as rapidly modeling advanced ballistics and nuclear reactions, Eads said.
“The power of these supercomputers equates to using tens of thousands of the newest MacBooks all at once,” Eads told the DCNF.
Consequently, U.S. entities using sanctioned Chinese supercomputers for advanced research may be exposing American technological assets to the threat of technology transfer through the CCP’s so-called “Military-Civil Fusion” strategy, which the State Department has warned “seeks to exploit the inherent ‘dual-use’” of technologies with both military and civilian applications.
“[CCP supercomputers] linked directly to the [People’s Liberation Army], risk transferring sensitive U.S. algorithms and models that could significantly enhance China’s capabilities in critical areas such as nuclear simulation and hypersonic weaponry,” Eads said.
‘No Such Thing As Harmless Cooperation’
Since October 2015, the DOD has funded at least 25 research projects using sanctioned CCP supercomputers, according to a DCNF review of U.S. government websites and scholarly databases.
In one instance, federal records show several Pentagon grants supported an October 2020 report conducted by a team of Chinese government personnel and a U.S. university professor researching “high-entropy alloys,” which have both aerospace and advanced nuclear applications. The team’s 2020 report thanks the “computational resource provided by the TianHe-1 supercomputer at the National Supercomputer Center in Changsha,” which the DOC sanctioned five years prior in February 2015 for activities contrary to U.S. “national security or foreign policy interests” and its use in “nuclear explosive activities.”
The DOD also funded a September 2024 report conducted by U.S. and China-based university professors, as well as Chinese government personnel, concerning hydrogen production. Eads noted the research may benefit the development of nuclear energy. The 2024 research report expressed gratitude for “the computational resources provided by the TianHe-1A, TianHe II supercomputer,” both of which were sanctioned by the DOC in 2015.
A third Pentagon-funded report from October 2018 conducted by U.S. and Chinese university professors, as well as DOD researchers, investigated atomic interactions, which Eads said could have dual-use applications related to developing nuclear weapon systems.
The 2018 research report thanked the “National Supercomputer Center in Guangzhou,” which houses the sanctioned TianHe-2 supercomputer, according to the U.S. government. Guangzhou’s National Supercomputer Center was involved in 68 of the 102 research reports identified by the DCNF, the most of any of the sanctioned Chinese supercomputers.
“The CCP’s comparative advantage is surveillance, not science or fundamental research,” Jacqueline Deal, an advisory board member at State Armor, a nonprofit focused on countering the CCP, told the DCNF. “The Party has wired its universities and overseas research institutions in order to sense and detect work with military or intelligence applications. There’s no such thing as harmless cooperation on dual-use topics with people subject to the reach of China’s surveillance apparatus.”
‘Loopholes’
The DOE and U.S. national laboratories have also supported at least 77 research projects using sanctioned CCP supercomputers, according to a review of government websites and scholarly databases.
Illinois’ Argonne National Laboratory (ANL), known for its work on the Manhattan Project to develop the atom bomb, has been involved in at least 29 research projects using sanctioned CCP supercomputers.
One DOE-funded ANL research project published in December 2020, titled “Memory-Efficient and Skew-Tolerant MapReduce Over MPI for Supercomputing Systems,” used Guangzhou’s TianHe-2 supercomputer and focused on optimizing memory storage for supercomputers.
In addition, ANL and U.S. university researchers collaborated with personnel from China’s National University of Defense Technology (NUDT), which the Commerce Department sanctioned in February 2015.
An ANL spokesperson told the DCNF by email that its researchers had “not used any of the sanctioned Chinese national supercomputing centers or their associated supercomputers,” and said that compliance with federal regulations was “a top priority.”
Yet, ANL did not respond to questions about whether or not it had supported research projects relying on China-based researchers using sanctioned CCP supercomputing centers.
New Mexico’s Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), which was established in 1943 to build the atomic bomb, has been involved in at least 22 research projects using sanctioned Chinese supercomputers, 15 of which involved collaboration with personnel from sanctioned Chinese universities.
Among other examples, in August 2022, LANL published a DOE-funded research project concerning spacecraft physics that leveraged simulations from Guangzhou’s TianHe-2 supercomputer.
The project also included personnel from Beihang University, which the Department of Commerce sanctioned in May 2001 under its former name, Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics. Beihang University is one of China’s so-called “Seven Sons of National Defense,” which serve as “defense science, technology and industry work units” subordinate to the main driver of the CCP’s Military-Civil Fusion strategy, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, according to the House Select Committee on the CCP.
A LANL spokesperson told the DCNF by email that “no LANL researchers worked on Chinese supercomputers, and there was no violation of export controls or Department of Commerce sanctions.”
However, the LANL spokesperson said certain research projects involving sanctioned Chinese supercomputers included LANL personnel who had participated in “scientific interpretation” or had “collaborated on the fundamental science.”
A LANL “code expert” who has allegedly developed a “large, open-source code” that was “used by the space physics community” and the sanctioned CCP supercomputers was also a research project co-author to “ensure that the code is working properly,” the LANL spokesperson told the DCNF.
“It’s disconcerting that esteemed DOE scientists, who are fully aware of the department’s critical national security role, persist in engaging with these sanctioned platforms,” Eads said. “Their actions contradict the very mission they are supposed to uphold.”
Tennessee’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), another Manhattan Project landmark, has likewise participated in 26 research projects using sanctioned CCP supercomputers.
In November 2018, ORNL published a DOE-funded research project investigating the production of an exotic material called graphane, which may have applications in solar cells, and is related, but not to be confused with graphene. The research acknowledged that “calculations were performed on the TianheII supercomputer at the Chinese National Supercomputer Center in Guangzhou.”
“ORNL has not violated Department of Commerce rules related to foreign entities,” an ORNL spokesperson told the DCNF by email. “No U.S. researchers performed work on Chinese supercomputers, and no government resources were used to support Chinese research conducted at the Chinese supercomputing centers.”
However, the spokesperson acknowledged that Chinese personnel involved in ORNL research projects had “used an ORNL instrument for non-sensitive, open science experiments” and had “used Chinese computers to analyze data.”
“Loopholes in current regulations and enforcement have allowed this dangerous practice to persist, exposing sensitive U.S. research to potential exploitation by Beijing,” Rep. Moolenaar told the DCNF. “Congress must act swiftly to close these gaps and ensure that taxpayer-funded research does not, in any form, contribute to strengthening our top geopolitical adversary.”
Featured Image Credit: Argonne National Laboratory’s Flickr page
