BANGKOK — China protested Wednesday after the U.S. added dozens of companies to its export control list, including more than 50 based in China that it says sought advanced information in supercomputing, artificial intelligence and quantum technology for military purposes.

Companies from Iran, Pakistan, South Africa, Taiwan and United Arab Emirates also were included in the roughly 80 companies added to the “entity list” of the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security.

Six are subsidiaries of the Inspur Group, China’s leading cloud computing and big data service provider. It was listed in the U.S. government’s entity list in 2023.

The update also includes the Beijing Academy of Artificial Intelligence, which objected vehemently.

“We are shocked that a private non-profit scientific research institution has been added to the entity list. We strongly oppose this wrong decision without any factual basis and ask the relevant U.S. departments to withdraw it,” the research institute said in a statement.

A review committee said the BAAI and another company, the Beijing Innovation Wisdom Technology Co., were judged to have developed large AI models and advanced computer chips for military purposes.

China’s Foreign Ministry also lashed back, saying the entity list and other export controls were an abuse meant to “unjustly suppress Chinese enterprises.”

“It seriously violates international law and basic norms of international relations, severely damages the legitimate rights and interests of enterprises, and undermines the security and stability of global supply chains. China firmly opposes and strongly condemns this,” ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun said at a routine news briefing Wednesday.

The aim is to restrict China’s capacity to acquire and develop ultra fast, or “exascale” supercomputers, to develop hypersonic weapons and other sensitive technologies, the bureau said in a notice on its website.