Top U.S. research labs funded by the Pentagon and Department of Energy have been tied to over 100 joint projects with Chinese scientists using blacklisted supercomputers — machines previously sanctioned for aiding China’s military buildup.
According to the Daily Caller News Foundation, the research spans areas such as satellite physics, nuclear materials and advanced manufacturing, all with dual-use potential. Despite bans dating back to 2015, records show that foreign collaborators often performed simulations on China’s most powerful computing systems and shared results with U.S. partners.
Projects traced to Argonne, Los Alamos and Oak Ridge included acknowledgments to Chinese centers in Guangzhou and Tianjin. These sites host machines linked to Beijing’s nuclear testing and hypersonic weapons programs.
Rep. John Moolenaar, who chairs the House committee on the Chinese Communist Party, slammed the collaboration. “Taxpayer-funded research should never assist adversaries building weapons meant to threaten the American people,” he said.
Acting as intermediaries, Chinese university researchers — some from military-controlled schools — participated in the studies and carried out calculations on sanctioned systems. This method, experts say, helps U.S. labs bypass direct involvement while still benefiting from Chinese computing power.
L.J. Eads, a former intelligence analyst, says these loopholes are dangerous. “When our scientists share data and code with Chinese co-authors, it can still be run on hardware that’s off-limits to Americans,” he said. “That undermines the entire point of export controls.”
Guangzhou’s supercomputing center appeared most often in the records. One project modeled hydrogen production techniques — a process with possible nuclear energy implications. Another analyzed graphane, a material potentially useful in solar technology.
Los Alamos officials confirmed participation in projects where Chinese supercomputers ran open-source code built in the U.S., including software developed by LANL scientists. Oak Ridge, meanwhile, said Chinese nationals accessed U.S. lab instruments but did not clarify how data was later handled.
While the Department of Commerce prohibited U.S. exports to the centers, those rules did not block Chinese researchers from using them on joint studies. The result, critics say, is a regulatory gap with consequences for national security.
