Microsoft has called on US President Donald Trump’s administration to reverse the export restrictions that were imposed on AI during his predecessor’s last days in office. The tech giant is of the view that these restrictions should not extend to US allies.
This comes as the Biden administration tightened screws on the export of AI consumables to China in what also escalated the geo-political tensions between the US and the Asian country.
Restrictions will hurt US firms including Microsoft
In a blog post that was published on Thursday, Microsoft lamented the export measures saying they disadvantaged US allies among them India, Israel, and Switzerland. The tech giant added that the rules also limited US tech companies’ ability to develop and expand data centers in these countries.
According to Reuters, the tighter US restrictions on exports of advanced AI chips to China are limiting US chipmakers and big tech from serving one of the largest markets for semiconductors, speeding up a global trade for AI infrastructure dominance.
Chip-making giant and market leader Nvidia whose chips power AI applications like OpenAI’s ChatGPT, could be worst hit by the curbs as prior restrictions limited exports of most of its graphic processors to China.
Towards the end of his term former president Joe Biden’s team revealed that they would further tighten restrictions on AI chips and technology, splitting up the world to keep advanced computing post in the US while funding more ways to block China.
Microsoft is concerned that more restrictions could lead to China gaining a leg-up in the AI race by forcing some allies to turn to the Chinese market in the absence of a sufficient supply of US tech.
Microsoft maintains the restrictions will strengthen China
According to Microsoft, these restrictions are a blessing in disguise for China and its tech sector, as this presents an opportunity for the Asian economy to craft its own alternatives and rival the US.
“Left unchanged, the Biden rule will give China a strategic advantage in spreading over time its own AI technology, echoing its rapid ascent in 5G telecommunications a decade ago.”
Microsoft
While Chinese tech firms in AI equipment and telecommunications like tech giant Huawei and its fellow Chinese peers have struggled to match Nvidia in developing top-end chips that could compete with US products, another start-up, DeepSeek surfaced from China. The start-up emerged with inference-focused, low-cost models that could present an opening, according to analysts.
The launch of DeepSeek’s models in January rattled the AI industry which saw markets crash as it sparked wider market sell-off in the tech world as investors became skeptical about the sector’s huge spending needs. DeepSeek said its models were made at a fraction of the cost of peers and used less sophisticated technology. Additionally, DeepSeek said that its models were superior to some popular models like OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini.
But Microsoft opines that these export limitations effected by the Joe Biden administration introduced in January “will become a gift to China’s rapidly expanding AI sector.”
A Wall Street Journal article, which first showed Microsoft’s proposals on Thursday, hinted at the possibility that the Trump administration officials were weighing steps to strengthen the restrictions while simplifying the export control rules.
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