Addition of Entities to and Revision of Entry on the Entity List

<RULE> DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE <SUBAGY>Bureau of Industry and Security</SUBAGY> <CFR>15 CFR Part 744</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. 250108-0010]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 0694-AJ76</RIN> <SUBJECT>Addition of Entities to and Revision of Entry on the Entity List</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Bureau of Industry and Security, Department of Commerce. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Final rule. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> In this rule, the Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) amends the Export Administration Regulations (EAR) by adding 11 entities under 11 entries to the Entity List. These entries are listed on the Entity List under the destination of China, People's Republic of (China) (11). These entities have been determined by the U.S. Government to be acting contrary to the national security and/or foreign policy interests of the United States. This rule also revises one existing entry on the Entity List under the destination of India. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> This rule is effective January 16, 2025. </EFFDATE> <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Chair, End-User Review Committee, Office of the Assistant Secretary for Export Administration, Bureau of Industry and Security, Department of Commerce, Phone: (202) 482-5991, Email: <E T="03">ERC@bis.doc.gov.</E> </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Background</HD> The Entity List (supplement no. 4 to part 744 of the EAR (15 CFR parts 730-774)) identifies entities for which there is reasonable cause to believe, based on specific and articulable facts, have been involved, are involved, or pose a significant risk of being or becoming involved in activities contrary to the national security or foreign policy interests of the United States, pursuant to § 744.11(b) of the EAR. The EAR imposes additional license requirements on and limits the availability of most license exceptions for exports, reexports, and transfers (in-country) when a listed entity is a party to the transaction. The license review policy for each listed entity is identified in the “License Review Policy” column on the Entity List, and the impact on the availability of license exceptions is described in the relevant <E T="04">Federal Register</E> document that added the entity to the Entity List. BIS places entities on the Entity List pursuant to part 744 (Control Policy: End-User and End-Use Based) and part 746 (Embargoes and Other Special Controls) of the EAR. The End-User Review Committee (ERC), composed of representatives of the Departments of Commerce (Chair), State, Defense, Energy, and, where appropriate, the Treasury, makes all decisions regarding additions to, removals from, or other modifications to the Entity List. The ERC makes all decisions to add an entry to the Entity List by majority vote and makes all decisions to remove or modify an entry by unanimous vote. <HD SOURCE="HD2">Additions to the Entity List</HD> The ERC determined to add Beijing Zhipu Huazhang Technology Co., Ltd.; Beijing Lingxin Intelligent Technology Co., Ltd.; Beijing Yuanyin Intelligent Technology Co., Ltd.; Beijing Zhipu Future Technology Co., Ltd.; Beijing Zhipu Linghang Technology Co., Ltd.; Beijing Zhipu Qingyan Technology Co., Ltd.; Hangzhou Zhipu Huazhang Technology Co., Ltd.; Nanjing Zhihu Information Technology Co., Ltd.; Shanghai Zhipu Huanyu Technology Co., Ltd.; and Shenzhen Zhipu Future Technology Co., Ltd., to the Entity List, under the destination of China. These additions are being made because these entities advance the People's Republic of China's military modernization through the development and integration of advanced artificial intelligence research. This activity is contrary to the national security and foreign policy interests of the United States under Section 744.11 of the EAR. A license is required for all items subject to the EAR, with a license review policy of a presumption of denial. The ERC determined to add Beijing Keyi Hongyuan Optoelectronics Co., Ltd. to the Entity List, under the destination of China. Specifically, this entity is co-developing lithography technology for advanced-node fabrication facilities in China. This technology will enable indigenous production in China of advanced integrated circuits for military end-use. This activity is contrary to the national security and foreign policy interests of the United States under § 744.11 of the EAR. A license is required for all items subject to the EAR, with a license review policy of a presumption of denial. For the reasons described above, this final rule adds the following 11 entities under 11 entries to the Entity List and includes, where appropriate, aliases: <HD SOURCE="HD1">China</HD> • Beijing Keyi Hongyuan Optoelectronics Co., Ltd., • Beijing Lingxin Intelligent Technology Co., Ltd., • Beijing Yuanyin Intelligent Technology Co., Ltd., • Beijing Zhipu Future Technology Co., Ltd., • Beijing Zhipu Huazhang Technology Co., Ltd., • Beijing Zhipu Linghang Technology Co., Ltd., • Beijing Zhipu Qingyan Technology Co., Ltd., • Hangzhou Zhipu Huazhang Technology Co., Ltd., • Nanjing Zhihu Information Technology Co., Ltd., • Shanghai Zhipu Huanyu Technology Co., Ltd., <E T="03">and</E> • Shenzhen Zhipu Future Technology Co., Ltd. <HD SOURCE="HD2">Modifications to the Entity List</HD> The ERC determined to modify one existing entry on the Entity List, “The following Department of Atomic Energy entities” under the destination of India. Specifically, the ERC determined to remove the three entities listed within the entry (“Indian Rare Earths,” “Indira Gandhi Atomic Research Center (IGCAR),” and “Bhabha Atomic Research Center (BARC)”) but continue to list the relevant facilities (Nuclear reactors (including power plants) not under International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) safeguards, (excluding Kundankulam 1 and 2); fuel reprocessing and enrichment facilities; and heavy water production facilities and their collocated ammonia plants) in the entry. The ERC determined to remove three entities from the entry based on information received pursuant to § 744.16(e) of the EAR and the review that the ERC conducted in accordance with the procedures described in supplement no. 5 to part 744 of the EAR. Modifying the Department of Atomic Energy entry to remove Indian Rare Earths, IGCAR, and BARC will support U.S. foreign policy objectives by reducing barriers to advance energy cooperation, including joint research and development and science and technology cooperation, towards shared energy security needs and goals. It will also enable closer cooperation between the United States and India to secure more resilient critical minerals and clean energy supply chains, following through on a leader-level commitment to hasten bilateral collaboration at a time when these supply chains have grown increasingly fragile. The United States and India share a commitment to advance peaceful nuclear cooperation and associated research and development activities, with strengthened science and technology cooperation over the past several years which has benefitted both countries and their partner countries around the world. The removal of the three entities from the entry aligns with and supports the overall ambition and strategic direction of the U.S.-India partnership. Prior to their removal, a license was required for all items subject to the EAR to these three entities regardless of the item's end use. With the removal of BARC, IGCAR, and India Rare Earths from the entry on the Entity List, a license is no longer required for exports to these three entities unless the end use is listed in § 744.2 of the EAR. Section 744.2 of the EAR prohibits exports, reexports, and transfers (in-country) of items subject to the EAR to defined nuclear proliferation activities, to any destination, other than countries in supplement no.3 to part 744. As India is not listed in supplement no.3 to part 744, exporters, re-exporters and transferors (in-country) are reminded that they are required to seek a license if they know or have reason to know that the exported item(s) will be used in any of the activities listed in § 744.2 of the EAR for all end-users in India, regardless of whether they are listed on the Entity List or not. India has openly tested nuclear weapons and openly declared that it possesses nuclear weapons. India has publicized its nuclear energy and nuclear fuel-cycle plans. Information on India's nuclear activities is readily available from a variety of reputable sources. Furthermore, India has publicized the list of civil nuclear facilities that are subject to IAEA safeguards. This list is available on the IAEA website as INFCIRC/754. Exporters should seek guidance from BIS if they are unsure if the exported item(s) will be used in nuclear explosive activities and/or unsafeguarded nuclear activities. <HD SOURCE="HD2">Savings Clause</HD> For the changes being made in this final rule, shipments of items removed from eligibility for a License Exception or export, reexport, or transfer (in-country) without a license (NLR) as a result of this regulatory action that were en route aboard a carrier to a port of export, reexport, or transfer (in-country), on January 16, 2025, pursuant to actual orders for export, reexport, or transfer (in-country) to or within a foreign destination, may proceed to that destination under the previous eligibility for a License Exception or export, reexport, or transfer (in-country) without a license (NLR) before February 18, 2025. Any such items not actually exported, reexported, or transferred (in-country) before midnight, on February 18, 2025, require a license in accordance with this final rule. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Export Control Reform Act of 2018</HD> On August 13, 2018, the President signed into law the John S. McCain Nationa ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 23k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━