The United States has delayed adding Chinese artificial intelligence company DeepSeek, memory chipmaker ChangXin Memory Technologies (CXMT) and more than 100 other firms identified as national security risks to a trade blacklist, according to people familiar with the matter.
The companies were approved for possible addition to the US Commerce Department’s Entity List by an interagency government committee last year, but the listings have not been published, Reuters reported. The delay comes as the Trump administration seeks to avoid further escalation in tensions with Beijing.
The Commerce Department’s Entity List restricts US companies from exporting goods, software and technology to designated organizations without a government license. Applications involving listed entities are generally expected to face significant restrictions.
DeepSeek, whose low-cost artificial intelligence model gained global attention in January 2025, has faced scrutiny from US officials. A senior State Department official previously told Reuters that DeepSeek had supported Chinese military and intelligence operations and had attempted to use Southeast Asian shell companies to gain access to advanced US chips.
Artificial intelligence companies have also raised concerns about DeepSeek’s activities. Anthropic said it identified a campaign involving DeepSeek and two other Chinese AI laboratories aimed at extracting capabilities from its Claude AI system, while OpenAI warned lawmakers that DeepSeek was targeting its models.
CXMT, China’s leading memory chipmaker, has also drawn attention from US authorities. The company was designated as a Chinese military company by the US Defense Department during the Biden administration, and the Commerce Department had considered adding it to the Entity List more than a year ago.
DeepSeek and CXMT did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS), which oversees the Entity List, did not directly explain why updates had not been published or comment specifically on the companies.
BIS said in a statement that it uses “many policy and enforcement tools, including the Entity List” to address organizations considered problematic.
The delay in adding new entities has occurred during a period of heightened competition between the United States and China over advanced technology, trade and national security. Washington has used tariffs and export controls to restrict China’s access to sensitive technologies, while Beijing has maintained control over rare earth minerals important to defense, automotive and semiconductor industries.
The Entity List has not received new additions since October, marking the longest gap between updates in more than a decade, according to Philip Luck, a global supply chain researcher at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
Luck said the absence of new listings could allow US technology to reach organizations that may use it in ways considered harmful to US interests.
Former Commerce Department official Kevin Kurland said the lack of additions showed that trade policy may be affecting the use of a national security tool designed to restrict technology transfers.
According to sources, several Chinese companies were selected for possible listing after allegedly supplying Russian drones recovered in Poland last September. Another source said dozens of Chinese companies had also been identified as security risks for providing restricted Nvidia chips to Chinese universities but had not been added to the list.
Potential targets also include Chinese companies involved in military drone production and the development and sale of robotic systems used by China’s armed forces, according to sources.
Since late 2025, Jeffrey Kessler, the Commerce Department’s undersecretary for industry and security, has sought to avoid adding Chinese entities to the Entity List over concerns that doing so could intensify tensions between Washington and Beijing, according to people familiar with the matter.
The decisions on Entity List additions are made by an interagency committee involving officials from the Commerce, Defense, Energy and State departments, and sometimes the Treasury Department. Sources said the committee has approved multiple companies for inclusion but that the Commerce Department has not yet published the designations.
At least 75 Chinese entities involved in advanced semiconductor production, semiconductor manufacturing equipment and artificial intelligence development have gone through the review process and were approved for potential blacklisting, according to one source.
