The U.S. Defense Department has added dozens of Chinese companies, including games and technology company Tencent, artificial intelligence firm SenseTime and the world's biggest battery maker CATL, to a list of companies it says have ties to China's military.

The U.S. Defense Department has updated its list of Chinese companies allegedly linked to the People's Liberation Army (PLA). The most notable new names on the list are memory maker Changxin Memory Technologies (CXMT), battery maker CATL, and cloud and gaming giant Tencent, reports Nikkei.

The US’s latest move to expand its list of Chinese military companies risks doing more than tanking the shares of some of its most valuable companies: It also threatens to accelerate decoupling of the world’s biggest economies.

The Defense Department added video game maker Tencent Holdings to its "blacklist" of companies doing business in the U.S. while allegedly aiding the Chinese military.

The United States has added Tencent, a leading Chinese technology conglomerate, to its list of firms accused of having ties to China’s military. This move has prompted South Korean game developers, many of whom have received investments from Tencent to access the Chinese market,

China has accused the US of "unjustified suppression" after Washington added two major companies to a list of organizations affiliated with Beijing's military.