American researchers funded by the Pentagon have helped Chinese military companies despite U.S. sanctions and other legal restrictions on such use, according to a think tank report.
At least $48 million in Pentagon funding has benefitted the People’s Liberation Army, the report by Parallax Advance Research warned.
“The entanglement of DoD-funded research with Chinese military-affiliated entities raises urgent national security concerns, particularly as adversaries like China seek to exploit emerging technologies for strategic advantage,” the report said.
The Parallax report was written by L.J. Eads, director of research at Parallax and a former Air Force intelligence analyst.
Mr. Eads said that despite Congress drawing clear red lines in legislation prohibiting work with China’s military companies, the Pentagon is still funding research that benefits Chinese firms like Huawei Technologies and BGI Genomics.
“We’re talking about at least $48 million in taxpayer dollars helping the PLA advance in AI, cyber, and biotech — because current safeguards are toothless, informal, and routinely ignored,” he said in an email.
“We’re not just leaking research — we’re funding our adversary’s weapons pipeline. Every dollar that flows to a project involving Huawei, BGI, China Mobile, or China General Nuclear Power Group undercuts U.S. deterrence and hands the PLA a strategic edge we’ll regret in the next conflict.”
The U.S. government for the past decade has sought to restrict transfers of technology to China that could boost Beijing’s rapidly expanding military.
The most recent example is a ban on advanced Nvidia microchips that can be used to power artificial intelligence in China.
Defense Department funding has boosted work by several Chinese military-linked companies, indirectly or directly, including Huawei, BGI, China General Nuclear Power Group, and China Mobile, the report said. All are “core components of China’s military-industrial complex,” the report said.
U.S. government efforts to prevent the loss of U.S. know-how to China’s military have been insufficient.
“The continued presence of Chinese military companies in [Department of Defense]-funded academic collaborations reveals not only the inadequacy of existing safeguards — but the urgent need for a categorical prohibition on all such engagements,” the report said.
The report is based on a review of federally funded academic and scientific research that revealed 17 cases in which Chinese military companies took part in or benefited from DoD-funded research.
Among the cases are those that involve the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT); Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University; University of California, Santa Cruz; Washington University; Vanderbilt University; Yale University and Princeton University.
All joined in partnerships with Chinese military-linked firms on projects directly funded by the Pentagon.
Five of these cases outlined in the report show that China’s People’s Liberation Army gained valuable know-how regarding telecommunications, cybersecurity, genetic surveillance and human genome research with military applications.
“Each of these cases demonstrates how ineffective oversight has allowed Chinese military companies to infiltrate the U.S. research ecosystem, leveraging American defense dollars to enhance their own technological capabilities in semiconductors, quantum computing, artificial intelligence, cyber warfare, telecommunications, and biotechnology — all strategic priority areas for China’s military modernization,” the report said.
In one case, research on unmanned aerial vehicle mapping — technology with clear military applications for electromagnetic sensing and precision targeting — was backed by more than $11 million in Army and Navy grants and involved researchers linked to Huawei Technologies and Chinese universities, the report said.
“By allowing adversarial entities linked to the PLA to access cutting-edge U.S. research in AI, biotechnology, and telecommunications, the U.S. is inadvertently accelerating China’s military modernization and eroding its own technological edge,” the report said. “This is not a policy gap — it is an enforcement crisis.”
The report urges Congress, the Pentagon and U.S. research institutions to take urgent action to strengthen enforcement mechanisms and full disclosure of all foreign research collaboration.
It said all research ties to PLA-linked companies and institutes should be cut off.
“The time for risk-based mitigation has passed. The time for zero tolerance is now,” the report said.
