China's Supercomputer Export Ban May Just Be Marketing

By banning export of its tech, China is signaling it has tech to export.
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China is getting stingy with its drones and supercomputers.

Citing unspecified national security concerns, the country is imposing export restrictions on supercomputers capable of 8 teraflop speeds and high-end aerial drones, according to China's official news agency.

The restrictions follow the announcement of the White House's National Strategic Computing Initiative last week, which aims to unite US government supercomputing projects to create the first exoflop computer. Last month, meanwhile, Pakistan shot down what officials alleged was an Indian spy drone that appeared to have been made in China.

But the new export restrictions may have little to do with either incident. Instead, they look more like a paradoxical form of marketing.

Bob Sorensen, an analyst with research firm IDC, says that although China is home to the fastest supercomputer in the world, isn't really a player in commercial high-performance computing, or HPC, market. "It's not like they have robust export industry that this would affect in any capacity," Sorensen says.

The US announced its own restrictions on HPC technology last April that set limits on sales of to countries like North Korea and Cuba, and specifically forbade Intel from selling its high-end Xeon chips to four supercomputing sites in China. While Sorensen says it's possible that China is adopting its own export rules in anticipation of stronger future sales, he thinks the ban could also be China's way of signaling to other countries—possibly those the US has frozen out—that it has supercomputing tech to export.

As for the drone restrictions, Xinhuanet says drones that are "capable of flying in gusty winds, hovering above 15,420 meters and having more than an hour of flight duration" are subject to the ban. But Defense World points out that the drone downed by Pakistan was likely a DJI Phantom III, which maxes out at a ceiling of 6,000 meters. Chinese company DJI is one of the biggest drone makers in the world, but its drones are mostly sold for consumer and commercial purposes, not military use. DJI vice president Shao Jianhuo reportedly told the Chinese news agency that none of its products would be banned.

"It was a surprise decision for the industry," he said. "But it really makes sense in terms of national security."