Microsoft has quietly debated the future of its advanced AI lab in China, sources say.
The laboratory opened in 1998 and has become one of the most important artificial intelligence hubs in the world, leading to improvements in the company’s speech, image and facial recognition software.
Microsoft Research Lab Asia (MSRA) opened at a time of optimism about China as an emerging democracy, but as tensions between the US and the communist state have increased, internal pressure has increased to close or roll back this democracy.
That pressure has only increased in recent months, after the Biden administration banned U.S. investments in Chinese technology companies that could support the rival superpower’s “military, intelligence, surveillance or cyber capabilities.”
But the tech giant’s founder, Bill Gates, continues to defend the lab and has pushed to keep it open, along with Microsoft research leaders and the current president.
Microsoft has quietly debated the future of its advanced AI lab in China, with founder Bill Gates backing the lab. When Gates visited China last June (above), President Xi Jinping warmly described the tech mogul as “the first American friend I’ve met this year.”
Microsoft’s internal hand-wringing has reportedly increased as the Biden administration prepares its ban on new US investments in Chinese tech companies that could support the rival superpower’s “military, intelligence, surveillance or cyber capabilities” (file photo)
The tech giant’s roughly $1 billion in AI investments in the Asian country have been mutually beneficial, bringing Microsoft $212 billion in revenue last fiscal year and nurturing local talent highly valued by China’s military-industrial complex.
Alumni from Microsoft’s AI lab in China have gone on to key positions at the country’s domestic tech giants, two of which head facial recognition developer Megvii – which has helped power China’s massive national surveillance system.
When Bill Gates visited China last June, after a three-year absence due to the coronavirus pandemic, President Xi Jinping described warmly the mogul as “the first American friend I met this year.”
Four current and former Microsoft employees, who spoke the New York Times anonymous, said the company’s top leaders are divided over the future of Microsoft’s MSRA, which has offices in both Shanghai and Beijing.
Microsoft’s current CEO, Satya Nadella, and its president, Brad Smith, have spent the past year debating what to do with the lab.
The tech giant’s founder Bill Gates and the company’s research leaders – including Chief Technology Officer Kevin Scott and Microsoft’s head of research Peter Lee – remain fierce defenders of the lab: MSRA’s Shanghai AI/ML Group (above)
But the tech giant’s founder, Bill Gates, and the company’s research leaders — including Chief Technology Officer Kevin Scott and Microsoft’s head of research Peter Lee — remain fierce defenders of the lab.
Scott and Lee, according to two sources who spoke to the Times, have argued that the lab has made crucial breakthroughs in AI, via MSRA’s Shanghai AI/ML group.
In a statement to the Times, Microsoft President Brad Smith seemed to follow the line of Gates, who still regularly advises the company’s executives.
“The lesson of history is that countries succeed when they learn from the world,” Smith said. “Guardrails and controls are critical, while engagement remains critical.”
Those guardrails include restrictions on work related to quantum computing, facial recognition software and synthetic media, an umbrella term that includes “deep fakes” and AI-generated vocal mimics, Microsoft said.
The tech giant also stated that its policy prevents the hiring of Chinese students and researchers whose resumes have placed them at a university linked to the Chinese military.
But there are gaps nonetheless: MSRA’s satellite lab in Vancouver is giving researchers free access to the supercomputing power and OpenAI systems needed for cutting-edge AI research, two sources said.
In a statement to the Times, Microsoft President Brad Smith appeared to follow the line of Gates (left), who still regularly advised the company’s executives. “The lesson of history is that countries succeed when they learn from the world,” Smith said
Last May, Microsoft revealed that Chinese hackers had targeted “critical” infrastructure in the U.S. territory of Guam, raising fears that Beijing could test U.S. cyber defenses in preparation for a communications blackout needed to prevent a … to launch a rumored attack on Taiwan.
While Microsoft has responded to some of China’s expectations for surveillance and censorship, shutting down LinkedIn in the Asian country over compliance concerns, it has sometimes bowed to those same demands.
For example, Microsoft’s Bing search engine, now the only foreign search engine in China, has followed the Chinese government’s censorship policies.
And the company offers business customers in China access to regulated versions of the Windows operating system, cloud computing and applications.
Further fueling tensions, Microsoft revealed that Chinese hackers had attacked “critical” infrastructure in the US territory of Guam last May, raising fears that Beijing could test US cyber defenses in preparation for a communications blackout that was needed to launch. a rumored attack on Taiwan.
The US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) confirmed that China was behind the breach, which affected multiple government and private sector organizations.
Tom Burt, head of Microsoft’s threat intelligence unit, said his team found the attack hit key nodes in Guam’s telecommunications sector.
China’s apparent focus on Guam is of particular importance as the US territory is a key military base in the Pacific, and would be a key base for any US response in the event of a conflict in Taiwan or the South China Sea .
Despite Microsoft’s active role in these international tensions, Gates maintains his own ties with China through his philanthropic organization, the Gates Foundation.
The foundation recently committed $50 million to the Beijing municipal government and a top university in China.
While Gates began to distance himself from Microsoft in 2008 and devote more time to these philanthropic projects, he was no longer even a member of Microsoft’s board of directors, but the billionaire remains the company’s largest individual shareholder.
In addition to his advice to Microsoft executives, Gates owns an estimated $35 billion worth of stock in the company, according to financial data analysts at FactSet.