Export Controls

System for Controlling Exports of High Performance Computing Is Ineffective Gao ID: GAO-01-10 December 18, 2000

The U.S. government controls the export of high performance computers to sensitive destinations on the basis of foreign policy and national security concerns. The current control system for high performance computers is ineffective because it focuses on controlling individual machines and cannot prevent countries of concern from linking or clustering many lower performance uncontrolled computers to collectively perform at higher levels than current export control allows. The current system uses the measure of millions of theoretical operations per second as a way to classify and control high power computers meant for export. However, this system, as well as three remedies suggested by the Department of Commerce, do not solve the problems posed by clustering.

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