Microsoft has announced that engineers in China will no longer be allowed to provide technical support for American defense clients, including the Department of Defense, which utilize its Azure cloud platform. This was reported by Tom's Hardware.
This decision came after an investigation by ProPublica, which revealed the involvement of Chinese specialists in supporting Pentagon cloud services, potentially posing cybersecurity risks to the United States.
According to Microsoft representative Frank Shaw, the company has revised its approach to providing technical support to U.S. government clients to ensure that no engineering teams from China will have access to projects related to the Department of Defense or other government agencies. Previously, Chinese engineers worked under the remote supervision of so-called "digital overseers" from the U.S., who often had lower technical qualifications.
Azure is a key revenue source for Microsoft, accounting for over a quarter of the company’s overall profit. In 2019, Microsoft won a $10 billion Pentagon contract, which was canceled in 2021. In 2022, the company secured new cloud contracts alongside Amazon, Google, and Oracle worth up to $9 billion.
U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin called the situation "unacceptable" and promised to review other systems for similar risks. Microsoft, for its part, assured that it would continue to work with the U.S. government, adapting its security protocols in response to threats.
