Supercomputer Licensing Update

At the June 1997 Board Meeting, the Board unanimously passed a resolution calling on Congress to adopt legislation regulating the sale of supercomputers to a number of countries including China and Russia. Rep. Tillie Fowler (FL) printed the resolution in the Congressional Record. By a wide margin, the House passed a licensing bill resembling the JINSA resolution.

At the June 1997 Board Meeting, the Board unanimously passed a resolution calling on Congress to adopt legislation regulating the sale of supercomputers to a number of countries including China and Russia. Rep. Tillie Fowler (FL) printed the resolution in the Congressional Record. By a wide margin, the House passed a licensing bill resembling the JINSA resolution. The Senate defeated a similar resolution and passed a much weaker version.

In mid-October, the House-Senate Conference negotiators agreed on language that would require computer manufacturers to check with the government before selling certain computers to countries including China and Russia. This would allow the government to determine whether the end user was engaged in nuclear weapons research, removing the burden from computer companies. Problematic sales could thus be stopped. The conference language also requires Federal monitoring of supercomputer exports,including checks after a shipment had reached its destination to ensure that the supercomputers were not placed in military-related facilities. China has refused to consider such post-shipment checks.

Supercomputers received increased attention on Capitol Hill after it was discovered that a supercomputer sent to China was sent to a nuclear weapons research facility and a Silicon Graphics computer sent to Russia was unaccounted for. More recently, 16 IBM supercomputers were sent to Russia’s premier nuclear weapons research facility. A formal IBM-US request to sell the computers had previously been denied, in part because the Russian Minister of Atomic Energy had said that Russia wanted to acquire such computers to improve its “nuclear ammunition.” Following the rejection, the Russians went to IBM-Europe and used a convoluted system of middlemen and shipping routes to get the computers into Russia without attracting American government attention.

The House easily approved the conference language in the FY98 National Defense Authorization Act. The Senate is expected to vote on the bill next week. The Administration has indicated that there are several provisions in the $268 billion authorization that could make the President veto the entire measure.