Lawmaker worries NSF program loophole enables Chinese institutions to access US-backed computing resources
Rep. John Moolenaar, R-Mich., sent a letter Thursday to NSF interim director Brian Stone asking the agency to revoke China-linked entities’ access to the Advanced Cyberinfrastructure Coordination Ecosystem: Services & Support — or ACCESS — program, according to a copy of the missive first seen by Nextgov/FCW.
ACCESS is a free, nationwide collection of supercomputing systems made available to academics and other researchers. It’s frequently used across U.S. institutions and national labs to assist with national security and economic research.
To use ACCESS, a researcher or educator must be based in the U.S., though researchers outside the country can still get access if a U.S.-based researcher acts as the principal investigator for the ACCESS request and allocation, according to the letter. An eligible principal can share their allocated resources by adding collaborators to the project, and those collaborators can be students or colleagues located outside the United States, the letter adds.
Screenshots provided in the missive appear to show several major Chinese institutions listed as approved entities eligible for access to the platform. Nextgov/FCW independently queried the ACCESS login page with the term “China” and viewed dozens of Chinese academic institutions in the dropdown list.
One institution is the National University of Defense and Technology, which has been placed on export control restriction lists. This past summer, Cadence Design Systems pleaded guilty to violating U.S. export control laws by selling chip design software and hardware to Chinese front companies tied to that military-linked university.
“In light of these findings, the Select Committee has concerns that ACCESS may be enabling Chinese entities, including previously blacklisted entities, to circumvent the U.S. export-control Regime,” the letter says. “By accessing U.S.-based high-performance computing resources remotely, these entities may be able to conduct advanced simulations, data processing and model training from within China without ever having to obtain export-controlled GPUs or licenses and at the expense and time of U.S. research timelines.”
The issue highlights growing concerns among U.S. lawmakers that federally funded research infrastructure could be indirectly benefiting foreign adversaries’ military or intelligence programs. High-performance computing systems underpin sensitive work in areas like artificial intelligence, materials engineering, cybersecurity and weapons modeling.
NSF did not immediately return a request for comment. Moolenaar asked the agency, by Feb. 6, to provide records identifying Chinese entities approved to access NSF’s ACCESS resources; the projects and allocations associated with those approvals; and whether Chinese users received access to U.S. supercomputing infrastructure while U.S.-based applicants were still awaiting approval.
Even as the U.S. has tightened export controls in recent years to limit China’s access to cutting-edge semiconductors and advanced computing technologies, the Trump administration has moved to permit some controlled sales of Nvidia’s H200 AI chips to China under new regulatory conditions. The shift has drawn criticism from lawmakers who say it could undercut broader economic and national security goals.
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