In a move which is more likely to damage the bottom line of US chipmakers than it will harm China, Trump has ordered the Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) the blacklisting of 50 Chinese firms, along with others in Iran, Taiwan, Pakistan, South Africa, and the UAE.

Under Secretary Jeffrey Kessler told the press: “BIS is sending a clear, resounding message that the Trump administration will work tirelessly to safeguard our national security by preventing US technologies and goods from being misused for high-performance computing, hypersonic missiles, military aircraft training, and UAVs that threaten our national security.”

One of the more high-profile victims of this bureaucratic purge is Inspur Group—China’s answer to Amazon Web Services and a known chum of Nvidia, AMD, and the ever-embattled Chipzilla.

According to BIS, Inspur has been helping the Chinese military build supercomputers that go faster than the Pentagon’s comfort level.

The Beijing Academy of Artificial Intelligence—an organisation that insists it's just a cuddly non-profit filled with boffins and not a front for SkyNet 2.0—is also crying foul.

“We are shocked that a private non-profit scientific research institution has been added to the entity list,” the research institute said in a statement to the Associated Press. “We strongly oppose this decision, which lacks factual basis, and urge the relevant US departments to reconsider it.”

Naturally, China’s Foreign Ministry is outraged, declaring the move a violation of international law and a profound affront to the fundamental principles of global trade.

Meanwhile, Nvidia and its partners are probably off somewhere, smashing their calculators, wondering how many billions this latest tech tantrum will cost them in lost business and angry shareholder calls.

US chipmakers saw their share prices tank yesterday on the back of the news.