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The Pentagon has added<\/a> Alibaba, Baidu, EV-maker BYD, and buzzy robotics company Unitree to a list of entities it says support the Chinese military.<\/p>\n The expansion of the list increases the chance that the Department of Defense could make it harder for U.S. companies to do business with these entities. It\u2019s also likely to further strain the tension between the U.S. and Chinese governments. <\/p>\n \u201cWe categorically reject the inclusion of Baidu on the list, and there is no credible justification for adding Baidu to the list,\u201d Baidu said in a statement to TechCrunch. \u201cThe suggestion that Baidu is a military company is entirely baseless. We will not hesitate to use all options available to us to have the company removed from the list.\u201d<\/p>\n Alibaba told TechCrunch that it \u201cis not a Chinese military company nor part of any military-civil fusion strategy. We will take all available legal action against attempts to misrepresent our company.\u201d<\/p>\n The list \u2014 known as the 1260H list, for the specific section of the 2021 National Defense Authorization Act that created it \u2014 is just one tool that the U.S. has used to place restrictions on Chinese tech. President Donald Trump has used tariffs in both of his terms to put pressure on China, including a 100% tax on imported Chinese EVs.<\/p>\n This particular update to the 1260H list was briefly published in February, before being pulled from the Federal Register for unexplained reasons, as Bloomberg News notes<\/a>. <\/p>\n Most of China\u2019s biggest artificial intelligence players are now on the list, with Tencent added last year. This comes as Trump has said he\u2019s weighing whether the U.S. should take equity stakes<\/a> in the country\u2019s top AI companies.<\/p>\n The updated list now includes 188 companies. <\/p>\n The Pentagon added a handful of automotive industry players to the list this year. In addition to BYD, trendy EV company Nio and battery companies CALB Group and EVE Energy were added. RoboSense, one of China\u2019s leading makers of lidar sensors, has joined its rival Hesai on the list, too. Baidu is also one of China\u2019s leaders in autonomous vehicles.<\/p>\n BYD, Nio, and RoboSense did not immediately respond to requests for comment.<\/p>\n This story has been updated with responses from Alibaba and Baidu.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n When you purchase through links in our articles, we may earn a small commission<\/a>. This doesn\u2019t affect our editorial independence.<\/em><\/p>\n