Pentagon says Alibaba, Baidu, BYD and Unitree support China’s military - BERITAJA

The Pentagon has added Alibaba, Baidu, EV-maker BYD, and buzzy robotics institution Unitree to a database of entities it says support the Chinese military.

The description of the database increases the chance that the Department of Defense could make it harder for U.S. companies to do business pinch these entities. It’s besides apt to further strain the hostility betwixt the U.S. and Chinese governments.

The database — known arsenic the 1260H list, for the circumstantial conception of the 2021 National Defense Authorization Act that created it — is conscionable 1 instrumentality that the U.S. has utilized to spot restrictions connected Chinese tech. President Donald Trump has utilized tariffs successful some of his position to put unit connected China, including a 100% taxation connected imported Chinese EVs.

This peculiar update to the 1260H database was concisely published successful February, earlier being pulled from the Federal Register for unexplained reasons, arsenic Bloomberg News notes.

Most of China’s biggest artificial intelligence players are now connected the list, pinch Tencent added past year. This comes arsenic Trump has said he’s weighing whether the U.S. should take equity stakes successful the country’s apical AI companies.

The updated database now includes 188 companies.

The Pentagon added a fistful of automotive manufacture players to the database this year. In summation to BYD, trendy EV institution Nio and artillery companies CALB Group and EVE Energy were added. Robosense, 1 of China’s starring shaper of lidar sensors, has joined its rival Hesai connected the list, too. Baidu is besides 1 of China’s leaders successful autonomous vehicles.

Alibaba, Baidu, BYD, Nio, and Robosense did not instantly respond to requests for comment.