The DOE announced the awards for ORNL and LLNL last November, and there wasn't a similar announcement about then, I don't see why today's is any more relevant.

That said, I doubt it comes as a surprise to the Chinese government, but it's kind of an ironic stick in the eye given what the DOE's mission is (and what the supercomputer at LLNL is used for). I suppose I don't blame the US government as I'm guessing the law prevents US companies from exporting devices used for nuclear weapons, but it's definitely a dick move.

Currently, there is only one thing the Chinese supercomputers are good at. Running Linpack. Give it time, and the Chinese will build up the library and experience to fully take advantage of the resource. In the mean time, we're not going to help them much.

The single biggest consumer of Supercomputing cycles is the DOE for Fusion^H^H^H^H^HSuperNova simulations. They'll chew this up in no time. At least this is being located at the LCF, so it will be open to all sorts of academic usage, too.

[ added ] Teach me not to read the news earlier. Not a bright move, cutting off the Chinese from Xeons and the like will only drive them to develop all the tech themselves. While I do not believe we should be handing them tech on a silver platter, it is actually worse to cut them off.