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Microsoft recently invited up to 800 of its employees presently living and working in China to relocate to other countries. The move is a corporate recognition of the rising tensions amidst a tech race between China and the United States.
Of concern to the U.S. is China’s ability to develop advanced generative artificial intelligence (AI) assessed to be stolen from Microsoft engineers through corporate espionage and threats of intimidation. Undoubtedly, there are even more genuine reasons for concern.
Microsoft has had a large, and until recently, growing presence in China for over two decades. Presently, Microsoft employs almost 5,000 people in China, 80% of which are software engineers. These hard-working folks innovate and create the source code for products used widely by the U.S. government, including Office, Exchange, Teams, Windows, and Azure. The company operates six data centers throughout China.
As the Wall Street Journal has reported, “[F]or decades, the Redmond, Wash.-based tech juggernaut has stood out among U.S. tech companies for its large footprint and close relationship with China… Over the years, Microsoft, whose offerings range from business software to videogames, has also built up a sizable research-and-development team in China focused on cloud computing and AI.”
While a smart business decision on the face of it, this large footprint has a downside: it poses a serious national security risk for the U.S. government. China’s 2016 National Cybersecurity Law requires technology companies operating in that country to store Chinese user data on mainland servers and to provide the government with access to source code, encryption keys, and backdoor access.
