Six months ago, a company called T-Platforms triumphantly announced the "First Delivery of [a] Russian Supercomputer to [the] US."

The US government has since added T-Platforms to a list of entities that are "acting contrary to the national security or foreign policy interests of the United States" by having involvement with nuclear research. Specifically, T-Platforms' operations in Russia, Germany, and Taiwan were added to the Export Administration Regulations (EAR) Entity List by representatives of the US Departments of Commerce, State, Defense, and Energy. This will make it difficult for T-Platforms to do business with US companies, although it isn't an outright ban.

"The Entity List notifies the public about entities that have engaged in activities that could result in an increased risk of the diversion of exported, reexported, or transferred (in-country) items to weapons of mass destruction (WMD) programs," the Department of Commerce's Bureau of Industry and Security said in its notice that T-Platforms is now on the list. "Since its initial publication, grounds for inclusion on the Entity List have expanded to activities sanctioned by the State Department and activities contrary to U.S. National security or foreign policy interests, including terrorism and export control violations involving abuse of human rights."

That supercomputers are used for nuclear research isn't surprising—it's one of the main reasons US government agencies are always buying bigger and better high-performance computing clusters.

As for why T-Platforms was named to the Entity List, the notice states that the company was "listed as the ultimate consignee on multiple automated export system (AES) records filed for the export of dual-use items controlled for national security reasons but shipped without the required licenses."

"Dual-use" in this context means having both commercial and military uses. The notice further states that the US "has reason to believe that T-Platforms is associated with military procurement activities, including the development of computer systems for military end-users and the production of computers for nuclear research."

The government announced this decision in March, and it was reported by HPCwire and then Slashdot this week. We have e-mailed T-Platforms and Commerce Department spokespeople to ask for more specifics on why T-Platforms was included on this list, and we'll provide an update if we receive one.

Founded in 2002, T-Platforms made the 26th-fastest supercomputer in the world, a system based at Moscow State University. The aforementioned delivery of a supercomputer to the US went to the State University of New York at Stony Brook, which needed lots of horsepower for research into "materials with special electronic and optical properties, and materials for supercapacitors and batteries to store energy."

Inclusion on the list will make it difficult for T-Platforms to do business with US companies. The Commerce Department said there will be a "presumption of denial" applied to transactions involving the company.

"Certain exports, reexports, and transfers (in-country) to entities identified on the Entity List require licenses from BIS [Bureau of Industry and Security] and are usually subject to a policy of denial," the Commerce Department said in its T-Platforms announcement. "The availability of license exceptions in such transactions is very limited."

Only exports are mentioned as being restricted, as opposed to imports. This could still be troublesome for T-Platforms, as it has used chips from US companies Intel and AMD in its systems.

As Slashdot reported, "The rule means that unless the company successfully appeals, [it] will have a difficult time obtaining systems directly from American manufacturers—although T-Platforms could turn to the channel or, at worse, the gray market."

The Entity List itself includes various organizations from the sorts of countries you'd expect (Afghanistan, China, Iran) and from countries that are on good terms with the US (such as Canada and Israel). Many of the entries are universities, scientific organizations, and computer or electronics firms.