The US Department of Commerce (DoC) has announced that seven Chinese supercomputing entities have been added to the 'Entity List', an instrument used to restrict the export, re-export, and in-country transfer of items to individuals, organisations, or companies believed to pose a threat to US national security or foreign policy interests. The seven entities are Tianjin Phytium Information Technology, Shanghai High-Performance Integrated Circuit Design Center, Sunway Microelectronics, the National Supercomputing Center Jinan, the National Supercomputing Center Shenzhen, the National Supercomputing Center Wuxi, and the National Supercomputing Center Zhengzhou. In motivating its decision, the DoC noted that these entities 'are involved with building supercomputers used by China's military actors, its destabilizing military modernization efforts, and/or weapons of mass destruction (WMD) programs'.