Four practical facilities in China connected with the massive computer called Tianhe 2 have been put on a U.S. government list of things established to be acting contrary to U.S. national security or foreign policy interests.

The Commerce Department did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Tuesday, Intel was refused an export permit late last autumn to provide more processors related to Chinese supercomputer jobs, Intel spokesman Chuck Mulloy said.

China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, three of the facilities, and Chinese computer manufacturer Inspur Group Co.–which helped assemble the machine–did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The National Supercomputing Center in Guangzhou said it did not immediately have an opinion.

Intel’s Mr. Mulloy said the chip maker is in conformity with the law. Designers of the Tianhe 2–or the Milky Way-2 in English–have said it’s generally used for scientific endeavors like genome research.

The firms are protesting China’s new banking- a planned counterterrorism law they say are too invasive and include handing over sensitive stuff including technology procurement rules. The Obama government has called on Beijing to hold back on those attempts.

Supercomputers–room-sized systems that yoke together large quantities of chip processors–are regularly used in lots of scientific disciplines, code breaking, weather forecasting and weapons research.

The Tianhe 2 system in 2013 vaulted to the very best of a twice-annual ranking of supercomputers, predicated on its operation on a string regular evaluations that are computing.

The U.S. government actions efficiently blocks Intel and others from selling newer processors to upgrade the system. They need to seek an export permit to sell technology to be utilized by the four websites that are Chinese. Such permits are “generally subject to a policy of refusal,” according to the Commerce Department notice.

Intel has coped with Inspur rather than directly with the Chinese facilities, said Mr. Mulloy, the Intel spokesman. He said the Commerce Department notified in August the company an export permit would have to provide processors connected with previously revealed supercomputer jobs connected with Inspur.

“Intel complied with the telling and applied for the permit, which was refused,” Mr. Mulloy said.

In spite of the possible use of supercomputers for military uses, export restrictions have been seldom used by authorities to the technology. One possible reason is the fact that the majority of parts used in such systems are widely available around the world as well as their shipping would be difficult to quit.

China significantly lags behind the U.S. in processor layout, though the authorities has been bankrolling research to enhance the capacities of local chip makers.

“The Chinese will be more incentivized to develop their particular technology, and U.S. producers will be viewed as less reliable and possibly not able to meet foreign orders,” Mr. Simon said.