F: US to curb China companies access to cloud services

© Engdao Wichitpunya

FORTUNE reports:

The US is preparing to curtail Chinese companies’ access to cloud computing services including Amazon.com Inc.’s and Microsoft Corp.’s, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing people familiar with the situation.

Washington is considering requiring cloud providers to seek government permission before serving Chinese firms that employ such platforms to train AI models, the Journal reported. Microsoft Azure and Amazon Web Services are the global leaders in the business of providing internet computing to enterprises, and compete in China with the likes of Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. through local, state-affiliated datacenter partners.

The Biden administration plans to tighten export controls announced in October to restrict sales of some artificial-intelligence chips to China, seeking to contain its rival’s development of a technology considered key to the country’s geopolitical and economic future. Part of the measures under discussion included restricting cloud access for Chinese AI developers, which was first reported by the Journal last week.