San Francisco, Apr 9 (IANS): After Huawei, ZTE and a host of Chinese companies, the US Commerce Department has now added seven supercomputing firms to its Entity List for allegedly supporting China's military efforts.

The move is aimed at restricting the development of Chinese technology towards building weapons of mass destruction.

The new entities include the Shanghai High-Performance Integrated Circuit Design Center, Sunway Microelectronics, and the Tianjin Phytium Information Technology, the US Commerce Department said in a statement on Thursday.

The remaining organisations are the National Supercomputing Centers in Jinan, Shenzhen, WuXi, and Zhengzhou.

These entities are "involved with building supercomputers used by China's military actors, its destabilising military modernisation efforts, and/or weapons of mass destruction (WMD) programmes".

Companies placed on the Entity List are banned from buying parts and components from US companies without government approval.

"Supercomputing capabilities are vital for the development of many - perhaps almost all - modern weapons and national security systems, such as nuclear weapons and hypersonic weapons," US Secretary of Commerce Gina M. Raimondo said in a statement.

"The Department of Commerce will use the full extent of its authorities to prevent China from leveraging US technologies to support these destabilizing military modernisation efforts," she added.

In the past, the US has added Chinese chipmaker SMIC, drone company DJI Technology, and other China-based technology companies to the list.