US blacklisting of China’s supercomputing giants ‘will only accelerate self-reliance drive’
- China will need to step up development of more supercomputers to handle growing requirements of industries, tech authorities say
The Trump administration’s move to add China’s supercomputing companies to its trade blacklist will only accelerate the domestic industry’s efforts to become more self-reliant, said Chinese experts who gathered for a conference in the country’s hi-tech heartland of Shenzhen.
Last week, the US Commerce Department added Sugon, the Wuxi Jiangnan Institute of Computing Technology, Higon, Chengdu Haiguang Integrated Circuit and Chengdu Haiguang Microelectronics Technology to the so-called Entity List over concerns about the military applications of the supercomputers these firms were developing.
“The Entity List will drive China to develop its own technology and be self-reliant on supercomputers,” said Feng Shengzhong, director of the National Supercomputing Centre in Shenzhen, in a group interview on Thursday at the 2019 World Conference on Intelligent Computers held in the southern Chinese coastal city bordering Hong Kong.
What you need to know about the Chinese supercomputer firms added to US trade blacklist
That list, which is maintained by the Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) under the Commerce Department, identifies organisations and individuals believed to be involved, or pose a significant risk of becoming involved, in activities contrary to America’s national security or foreign policy interests. Those on the list are effectively barred from buying hardware, software and services from American hi-tech suppliers.
“In the long run, this [US trade ban] will benefit China’s supercomputer development,” Feng said.
The latest US action against those Chinese supercomputer firms has expanded the trade and tech war between the world’s two largest economies into another critical hi-tech sector.
Liang Yongsheng, director of the science and technology innovation committee of Shenzhen, said at the conference that the Trump administration’s efforts to throttle China’s technology companies would spur further innovation. He suggested “a top-down approach to semiconductor development”, in which the central government draws up a national plan that would be supported by cities across the country.
“The roll-out of 5G [services] will generate much more data, so it requires the development of more supercomputers,” Feng said. “Without supercomputers, there is no big data and artificial intelligence.”
China ‘has decided not to fan the flames on supercomputing rivalry’ amid US tensions
Earlier this year, China planned a multibillion-dollar investment to upgrade its high-performance computer systems to regain leadership after the US took top spot for the fastest supercomputer in 2018, ending China’s five-year dominance.
Chinese authorities, however, decided not to enter the country’s newest high-performance system, Shuguang, in the latest Top500 ranking of the world’s fastest supercomputers, which is a list announced twice a year, to help ease tensions amid the ongoing trade dispute with the US.
Shuguang, located in the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing, is capable of performing calculations at more than 200 petaflops. A petaflop refers to one quadrillion (or a million billion) calculations per second.
China continued to lead the world with 219 supercomputers ranked in the latest Top500 list, compared with 116 from the US.