Microsoft Chairman and Well-known Govt Officer Satya Nadella (L) returns to the degree next a pre-recorded interview right through the Microsoft Manufacture convention opening keynote in Seattle, Washington on Might 19, 2025.
Jason Redmond | AFP | Getty Photographs
Microsoft on Friday revised its practices to assure that engineers in China now not serve technical assistance to U.S. protection shoppers the usage of the corporate’s cloud services and products.
The corporate applied the adjustments in an attempt to leave nationwide safety and cybersecurity dangers stemming from its cloud paintings with a significant buyer. The announcement got here days next ProPublica printed an extensive report describing the Protection Section’s dependence on Microsoft instrument engineers in China.
“In response to concerns raised earlier this week about US-supervised foreign engineers, Microsoft has made changes to our support for US Government customers to assure that no China-based engineering teams are providing technical assistance for DoD Government cloud and related services,” Frank Shaw, the Microsoft’s important communications officer, wrote in a Friday X post.
The trade affects the paintings of Microsoft’s Azure cloud services and products section, which analysts estimate now generates greater than 25% of the corporate’s income. That makes Azure larger than Google Cloud however smaller than Amazon Internet Products and services. Microsoft receives “substantial revenue from government contracts,” consistent with its most up-to-date quarterly income remark, and greater than part of the corporate’s $70 billion in first-quarter income got here from shoppers primarily based within the U.S.
In 2019, Microsoft received a $10 billion cloud-related protection word, however the Pentagon wound up canceling it in 2021 next a criminal struggle. In 2022, the branch gave cloud commitments usefulness as much as $9 billion in overall to Amazon, Google, Oracle and Microsoft.
ProPublica reported that the paintings of Microsoft’s Chinese language Azure engineers is overseen through “digital escorts” within the U.S., who usually have much less technical prowess than the workers they supremacy in another country. The record evocative how the “digital escort” association would possibly reduce the U.S. liable to a cyberattack from China.
“This is obviously unacceptable, especially in today’s digital threat environment,” Protection Secretary Pete Hegseth stated in a video posted to X on Friday. He described the structure as “a legacy system created over a decade ago, during the Obama administration.”
Microsoft initially instructed ProPublica that staff and contractors had been running in adherence to U.S. executive laws.
“We remain committed to providing the most secure services possible to the US government, including working with our national security partners to evaluate and adjust our security protocols as needed,” Shaw wrote.
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