US lawmakers are warning Microsoft against cultivating cozy ties with China because it develops AI technology – at the same time as the tech giant’s president Brad Smith has recently touted increased collaboration with the American adversary.
During a gathering with China’s Minister of Commerce Wang Wentao earlier this month, Smith reportedly said the Big Tech firm was willing to “actively take part in the digital transformation of China’s economy.”
On the summit, which centered on AI and other diplomatic issues, China said it hoped Microsoft would play a “constructive role” on AI cooperation.
Smith’s visit raised alarms amongst US lawmakers and other critics who worry Microsoft’s decades-long presence in China – where it has about 10,000 employees – poses a possible national security risk.
Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), who pressed Smith on whether Microsoft was “too entwined” with China during a high-profile spat at a Senate hearing on AI in September, called on Congress to interrupt up the partnership.
“Microsoft should know higher. The Chinese Communist Party wants AI supremacy in order that it may degrade and defeat US capabilities, seize Taiwan, and make the world less secure,” Hawley told The Post. “No American company must be wined and dined into considering otherwise. And Congress should block partnerships like this.”
Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-Wis.), chairman of the House Select Committee on China, expressed similar concerns, noting that Smith’s trip occurred at the same time as the panel called for “stronger export controls on artificial intelligence and other critical technologies.”
“Tech firms operating in China, like Microsoft, need to grasp that the CCP will use AI for evil techno-totalitarian purposes,” Gallagher said in a press release to The Post. “We should be clear-eyed in regards to the economic and national security risks involved with conducting AI research with our foremost adversary, the Chinese Communist Party.”
Concerns have intensified as Microsoft-backed OpenAI, Google and various state-affiliated Chinese firms scramble to develop advanced AI tools that might dominate the longer term economic and military landscape.
US-China relations recently have soured over various disputes, including American concerns about mental property theft and Beijing’s aggression toward Taiwan.
Smith’s warm words appeared to contradict public remarks that Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella made only a month earlier.
On Nov. 15, Nadella told CNBC that Microsoft was “mostly focused on the worldwide market ex-China.” He tried to distance the corporate’s dealings from the Chinese government, noting that “a variety of the Chinese multinationals operating outside of China are our larger AI customers.”
Nadella also alluded to the US government’s national security concerns, stating, “it’s clear that america has a selected set of policy decisions that they’re making on what it means to each have trade and competition and national security.”
“Mixed signals” of this type have turn into more common as Microsoft tries to walk the road between keeping the US government glad and maintaining access to the large Chinese market, in accordance with Paul Rosenzweig, a former Homeland Security deputy assistant secretary.
“China is a large market and mostly, their job is to earn money,” Rosenzweig said. “However the last five to 10 years have seen a gradual but persistent shift within the long-term strategic relationship between the US and China. They’re continuing to attempt to walk a line that’s increasingly untenable.”
A Microsoft spokesperson said the corporate has been “working for years to publicly guide how AI technologies are created and used on our platforms in responsible and ethical ways,” and that the corporate is among the many Big Tech firms that agreed to “Voluntary AI Commitments” with the White House this summer to administer the risks of the technology.
“The AI work we do in China shouldn’t be for military use, but is as an alternative focused on accelerating scientific discovery and technology innovation for the advantage of the international academic research community. Microsoft is committed to operating in China in a way that upholds our corporate values and doesn’t undermine U.S. national security interests,” the spokesperson added.
“Furthermore, given the evolving landscape in China, it’s important that we continually reevaluate our operations to make sure they’re consistent with our corporate values.”
Big Tech firms similar to Google and Meta have mostly retreated from the region following high-profile dustups with Beijing over platform censorship and intense scrutiny from US lawmakers.
In contrast, Microsoft has steadily expanded its operations in China because the Nineties, operates a heavily censored version of its Bing search engine within the mainland and released a modified version of its Windows operating system for the Chinese government.
Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), who sits on the Senate Finance Committee, noted that US firms operating in China are “subject to strict rules, which include installing CCP officials inside their organizations.”
“The American people don’t want Beijing controlling our technology,” Blackburn said in a press release. “Our U.S.-based firms must know and respond appropriately to the price of doing business in Communist China.”
Last week, eyebrow-raising footage from Chinese state television appeared to point out members of China’s military using Microsoft’s HoloLens mixed-reality headset.
The corporate boasted in a 2018 blog post that it had spent greater than $1 billion on research and development within the country over the previous decade.
Microsoft isn’t the one US tech player to face scrutiny over its China ties.
Apple CEO Tim Cook usually faces questions over the corporate’s deep connection to the Chinese market, where the iPhone maker has achieved rapid growth in recent times, while Tesla CEO Elon Musk built a serious production plant in Shanghai and was recently blasted by Taiwanese lawmakers for defending China’s stance toward the island nation.
“Every American company that chooses to work in China is one other opportunity for the Chinese Communist Party to attain its goal of overpowering america,” Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) said in a press release.
Rosenzweig noted that Microsoft’s collaboration with the Chinese government comes with a “multitude of risk aspects,” similar to China having access to proprietary details about AI products through forced technology transfer or learning about software vulnerabilities in products, like Office or Teams, which can be widely utilized by US government agencies.
“Sharing those capabilities with the Chinese is eliminating an economic advantage for america and quite likely, within the midterm, eroding a national security advantage for america,” he said.
Microsoft operates research labs in Beijing and Shanghai that serve incubators for AI research and played an “instrumental force helping China turn into the AI powerhouse it’s today,” in accordance with a recent Protocol report.
The research labs were a key point of contention during Hawley’s dustup with Smith on the recent Senate hearing.
The Republican cited national security concerns related to Microsoft’s work in China, in addition to evidence that the Chinese government has exploited advanced tech like facial recognition while committing human rights abuses against the Uyghur Muslims.
Smith disputed the notion that Microsoft had turn into a “revolving door” for China’s AI researchers and argued the corporate’s presence within the country provided other western firms energetic in China with a secure strategy to store their data.
“We’re and want to have very specific controls on who uses our technology and for what and the way,” Smith said on the time. “That’s why we don’t, for instance, do work on quantum computing or we don’t provide facial recognition services or concentrate on synthetic media.”
