A new investigation reveals that American-funded labs have relied on Chinese supercomputers to carry out complex simulations, despite longstanding sanctions that link those systems to the Chinese military.
The report uncovered 102 research projects supported by the Pentagon and Department of Energy that involved cooperation with five banned supercomputing centers in China. The facilities, which are located in cities like Guangzhou and Tianjin, have been connected to China’s weapons development programs.
Rep. John Moolenaar of Michigan called the findings unacceptable. “These supercomputers have been used for hypersonic missile design, nuclear testing and other dangerous applications,” he said. “Our research funding should not be assisting them in any way.”
Los Alamos and Oak Ridge national labs were named in the report, along with Argonne.
Although the labs deny using the machines themselves, they acknowledged some collaboration with Chinese researchers who did. In one 2018 study, a project involving atomic interactions thanked a supercomputer in Guangzhou that had been blacklisted for years.
Other research touched on materials used in nuclear energy, ballistic tracking and hydrogen fuel studies — areas with obvious overlap between commercial and military use.
Former Air Force analyst L.J. Eads said export rules have loopholes. “If Chinese collaborators run the code for you, you’re still sharing U.S. science,” he said. “It’s a technical way around sanctions but it carries the same risk.”
The labs said they follow compliance protocols and insisted that U.S. researchers didn’t touch the foreign systems. Still, the participation of Chinese partners based at military-linked institutions raises eyebrows.
One 2020 paper thanked the TianHe-1 supercomputer for enabling research into high-entropy alloys — a type of material with potential applications in defense aerospace. Another used Chinese supercomputers to study space weather, which has implications for radar and communications systems.
According to the State Department, China’s Military-Civil Fusion strategy is designed to extract innovation from civilian partnerships and reroute it to the People’s Liberation Army.
Argonne, Oak Ridge and Los Alamos were all key to the Manhattan Project. Critics say they are now helping Beijing, even if indirectly.
