Proactive Investors - Microsoft Corp (NASDAQ:MSFT) has allegedly asked hundreds of staff members to relocate from China on the back of growing tensions with the west.
Some employees were offered an “optional internal transfer opportunity”, a Financial Times-cited source said on Thursday.
Between 700 and 800 people in Microsoft’s China-based cloud-computing and artificial intelligence wing were asked to leave, another report from the Wall Street Journal said.
Sources added Microsoft would continue to operate in China, where it has about 9,000 employees, though the move comes days after the White House tightened controls on exports from the country.
Tariffs on around US$18 billion (£14.6 billion) worth of imports from China were introduced on Tuesday, including electric vehicles and critical minerals.
Proposals had also been made in January by the Biden administration to make US cloud companies disclose use of their systems in training foreign AI models.
This comes over increasing concern from the US government over the threat of foreign actors using AI for harmful purposes.
According to Chinese media, the relocation offer was extended to staff in Microsoft's Azure cloud group, focussing on machine learning and other AI fields.