With tensions between the US and China, will Microsoft continue to run operations in its Beijing-based AI lab?

[Windows Central]

The US and China's long-term rivalry continues to brew more trouble with a debate on whether Microsoft should continue running its operations in its Beijing-based AI tech lab.

With tensions between the US and China, will Microsoft continue to run operations in its Beijing-based AI lab? : Read more

 

[fdruid]

This is silly. Understandable, but you can't stop China. US should rather keep collaborations like Microsoft's going as a way to keep things more or less in view.

Guys, China is gonna win this one, like it or not. They won't have the ethical concerns to slow down their research and implementation...

 

[GraniteStateColin]

Something's off: "China alone accounted for up to 1.5% of Microsoft's sales, translating to a whopping $212 billion" That would mean MS total sales would be over $14T (1.5% of $14.1T = $212B), which is not right. Perhaps this was supposed to say that China accounts for 1.5% of MS' $212B in sales? Is China really only 1.5% of MS' total revenue? If that's right, I'm surprised it's not a larger number.

 

[GraniteStateColin]

This is silly. Understandable, but you can't stop China. US should rather keep collaborations like Microsoft's going as a way to keep things more or less in view.

Guys, China is gonna win this one, like it or not. They won't have the ethical concerns to slow down their research and implementation...

I disagree. The goal of keeping China in view and possibly encouraging them to become more free and capitalist through trade was a reasonable one when first proposed by Nixon in the early 1970s to help separate them from the U.S.S.R., but it has become obvious in the decades since that rather than shift toward freedom and stronger relations with the West, China has used its cheap labor to lure countries and companies to move high-tech manufacturing there only to steal the IP and repurpose it for their own political and military goals. ANYTHING we can do to diminish that is a good thing.

Yes, China may very well then create their own systems and we risk losing some visibility to that, but I'd rather leave them to do that than continue to just give them access to all our innovations and guarantee they have matching technology. Authoritarian and communist systems rarely have the same level of innovation as free capitalist systems (they lack the incentives and culture of individual creativity and entrepreneurial innovation that drives our leadership in those areas), so even if China comes from the same starting point based on their recent IP thefts, it is reasonable to at least hope that they can't match our rate of innovation and advancement going forward.