CAEP was one of the first Chinese institutions sanctioned by Washington to prevent foreign powers from using its products in atomic weapons research.
The US newspaper The Wall Street Journal revealed on Sunday that the Chinese Academy of Engineering Physics (CAEP) has bought sophisticated semiconductors made by US companies such as Intel and Nvidia at least a dozen times in the past two years and medium, despite being in an export blacklist of the United States since 1997.
According to the report, China’s top nuclear weapons research institute, whose physicists helped develop the first hydrogen bomb from the countrypurchased the chips from local resellers.
Some were bought as components of computer systems, and many of them were acquired by the institute’s laboratory that studies computational fluid dynamics, a broad scientific field that includes modeling of nuclear explosions, the paper details, citing the corresponding purchase documents.
It was also found that at least 34 research publications carried out by the CAEP in the last decade they made reference to the use of American semiconductors, both for data analysis and for the generation of algorithms. According to nuclear experts, in at least seven of them, the research may have applications in the maintenance of nuclear reserves.
The activities of CAEP — which was one of the first Chinese institutions sanctioned by Washington to prevent foreign powers from using US products in atomic weapons research — now highlights the challenge facing the Administration of President Joe Bidenin its attempt to “more aggressively counter” the application of its computer products by the Chinese military, the newspaper said.
Despite the fact that the United States expanded the scope of its export regulations on US chips and the tools for their manufacture in October, a large number of semiconductors designed in the United States are manufactured abroad. This makes it easier for them to continue to be sold in China despite Western restrictions.
Source: RT
