|
Washington has been trying to limit Beijing's access to advanced
chips used in AI applications on grounds that they can be used
to strengthen the country's military, sparking tensions that
have put pressure on U.S. companies operating in China.
Microsoft is asking about 700 to 800 people who are involved in
machine learning and other cloud computing-related work to
consider relocating, according to the Wall Street Journal, which
first reported the news.
"Providing internal opportunities is a regular part of managing
our global business. As part of this process, we shared an
optional internal transfer opportunity with a subset of
employees," a Microsoft spokesperson said in an emailed
statement, without specifying the number of employees it sent
the request to.
Microsoft remains committed to China and will continue to
operate there and other markets, the spokesperson said.
The Windows maker is among U.S. companies that have the largest
presence in China. It entered the market in 1992 and operates a
large research and development center in the country.
The employees, mostly engineers of Chinese nationality, were
earlier in the week offered an option to transfer to the U.S.,
Ireland, Australia, and New Zealand, WSJ reported, citing people
familiar with the matter.
Reuters could not immediately verify those details.
The move comes days after U.S. President Joe Biden's
administration hiked tariffs on various Chinese imports
including electric vehicle batteries, computer chips and medical
products.
Reuters reported earlier this month that the U.S. Commerce
Department is considering a new regulatory push to restrict the
export of proprietary or closed-source AI models, whose software
and the data it is trained on are kept under wraps.
(Reporting by Kanjyik Ghosh, Surbhi Misra and Akash Sriram in
Bengaluru and Fanny Potkin; Editing by Nivedita Bhattacharjee)
[© 2024 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.]
This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Thompson Reuters is solely responsible for this content.
|
|
