US Considering Restricting China's Access to Cloud Computing, Azure, AWS and GCP May be Affected

According to the Wall Street Journal, the US is getting ready to limit China's companies' access to cloud computing services, AWS (Amazon), Azure (Microsoft) and GCP (Google) may be affected. The US government is considering requiring cloud providers to obtain government permission before serving Chinese companies that use these platforms to train models for artificial intelligence. In China, Microsoft Azure and Amazon Web Services compete with local data center partners like Alibaba Group, while Google cloud platform has a data center in China Hong Kong.

In October, the Biden administration announced plans to tighten export controls and restrict sales of some AI chips to China. Part of these measures included restricting cloud access for Chinese AI developers, which was first reported by the Journal last week. The broader Commerce Department proposal, expected in July, would revise export controls to make it harder to sell some chips to China without a license. This move is aimed at Nvidia's A800 chip.

The US and China are in a technological conflict, and China has shown it can retaliate against moves by the US, Japan, and Europe to cut Beijing off from advanced technology. On Monday, Beijing imposed controls on the export of metals that are critical to the chip, electric vehicle, and defense industries.

On Monday, July 3rd, China announced its plans to regulate the export of certain metals that are frequently used in the semiconductor industry. This move is China's latest response to the ongoing dispute with the US regarding access to high-tech microchips.