On May 15, Titanium Media said: Microsoft headquarters issued an email informing the AI research team in China that the overall relocation to the United States or Australia, involving hundreds of employees.
Employees need to make a decision on June 7 to either choose to go to the U.S. or choose to leave with compensation.
Microsoft's move has been interpreted by many media as a "cut" with China, but in fact, Microsoft is not the first to cut or adjust its strategy.
Micron and Qualcomm have both withdrawn from some of their Chinese operations
As early as January 25, 2022, Micron, the American memory chip giant, announced the dissolution of its 150-person Shanghai R&D center, and selected more than 40 core R&D personnel to provide "technical immigration" qualifications to the United States.
At that time, Micron also responded to this matter, saying that the company did not want to dissolve the entire Shanghai R&D center, but only dissolve the DRAM design department, and the sales and testing departments would still be retained.
In addition, Micron said that the Xi'an factory will not be evacuated, after all, the factory is only the manufacturing, assembly, and testing of DRAM chips, and does not involve the core design business.
Something similar happened to Qualcomm, on September 19, 2023, the news of Qualcomm's layoffs appeared on the Internet, and it was very fierce at that time, saying that Qualcomm was going to "evacuate Shanghai", "close offices", and "large-scale layoffs of mainland technicians".
In fact, Qualcomm did make layoffs, but not just in China, but by 5% globally, with the mobile sector being the hardest hit.
Because of the rise of Huawei's smartphones and the return of Kirin chips, Qualcomm's mobile phone chip shipments have dropped sharply by more than 50 million pieces.
It is worth noting that Qualcomm disbanded the WiFi R&D team in Shanghai at that time, and Qualcomm had four offices in China, including Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, and Xi'an, and only Beijing and Shanghai had R&D positions.
Why only for the WiFi R&D team in Shanghai?
Because we have a company called Huawei, which is engaged in communications, and its HiSilicon semiconductor design company has developed a large number of high-end chips, including Wifi chips.
Huawei HiSilicon has a technical director named Zhang Kun, who left his job to become Zunpai Technology, which steals Huawei's core core technology and "transfers" the technology to overseas companies to obtain high profits.
Shanghai and Jiangsu police arrested the core personnel of Zunpai Communications on the front foot, and Qualcomm disbanded the WiFi R&D team in Shanghai on the back foot, and everyone was still speculating when Qualcomm released WiFi7 technology ahead of Huawei.
This has had a great impact on Huawei, and even the entire Chinese communications sector, and even threatens the mainland's information security.
Therefore, from the perspective of the operation of Micron and Qualcomm, business reduction is only one aspect, and more important is the cutting of core technology.
U.S. and Chinese technologies are cutting at an accelerated pace
The technology of China and the United States is accelerating the cutting, which is mainly reflected in the withdrawal of key technology departments, the ban on the sale of high-end chips, the restriction of the sale of advanced equipment, and the suspension of patent technology licensing.
The operations of Microsoft, Qualcomm and Micron are mainly reflected in the withdrawal of key technical departments.
When Micron, Qualcomm, and Microsoft withdrew from their Chinese operations, none of them did "special care" for key technical talents, and they provided "technical immigration" qualifications for core R&D personnel.
We saw that at that time, more than 40 of Micron's DRAM design core personnel were qualified to go to the United States, and now Microsoft's core technical talents in China will also be "packaged" to the United States or Australia.
This approach can prevent the leakage of "technology" to the greatest extent.
Some Chinese employees were very excited to see that they could get a U.S. green card without much effort. After all, many Chinese students studying in Ivy League universities find it difficult to get work visas and stay in the United States.
The family members of the employees could not hide their excitement and began to show off online.
A netizen who claimed to be a teacher in Beijing said that he had decided to give up his job in China and go to Sydney with his lover to start over.
Some employees also said that their babies are still young, they went to the United States, they have to take care of the children, and their husbands are alone in Microsoft, can the salary support the family?
Single employees are even ready to go overseas to find their significant other.
These Chinese employees don't seem to be aware of the "technological separation between China and the United States", and the reason why they want to take you to the United States and Australia is because you have mastered a lot of core technologies, or you still have value in technology.
Once these technologies are phased out, or you don't have the value to use them, then you face more than just unemployment, layoffs, or even deportation.
You want to! They have used former employees of Huawei HiSilicon to steal the core technology of their old employer, and they will definitely prevent you from stealing the key technology.
Therefore, Microsoft, Qualcomm, and Micron will think that your loss of value not only represents a drag, but also represents a risk, and in order to protect their own interests, such risks must naturally be excluded.
The ban on high-end chips is mainly focused on the field of AI chips.
Nvidia A100, H100, H200, AMD's MI300 series are restricted from being sold to Chinese companies, and U.S. Secretary of Commerce Raimondo also said that as long as Nvidia designs an AI chip for export to China, then the chip will be banned the next day.
Restrictions on the sale of advanced equipment:
In the field of semiconductor equipment, the United States, Japan and the Netherlands control 91.5% of the market share, and now the three countries have reached an alliance and have introduced a policy of restricting the sale of semiconductor equipment.
Fools can also see that this is targeting Chinese chips, in a vain attempt to lock Chinese chips on the 14nm process.
In terms of patent licensing:
Intel is the inventor of the x86 architecture and licenses AMD development through strict protocols. AMD only licenses the first-generation Zen architecture of China Haiguangxin.
Now, Zen3 has been around for more than 3 years, and the authorization of mainland enterprises is still stuck in the Zen1 era, and Zen2 authorization cannot be obtained.
ARM, as the inventor of the reduced instruction set, has made it clear that it will not license the most advanced ARM V9 architecture to Huawei, so Huawei needs to strengthen research and development in the field of chip architecture in the future to ensure the leading chip performance.
As the core base of the entire science and technology field, chips have always been known as the world's chip makers, and China has long played the role of the "big brother" in chip purchases in order to enhance its own scientific and technological strength.
In 2023, the mainland's imported chips will decrease by 10.8% year-on-year compared with 2022, and the amount will also decrease by 66.2 billion US dollars, but it will still reach 479.5 billion and 349.4 billion US dollars, or about 2,522.3 billion yuan.
But what is embarrassing is that we have spent the money of the "big brother", but we do not have the status of "big brother", not only can we not get the authorization of advanced equipment and technology, but we are even restricted from purchasing advanced AI chips.
The United States just wants to limit us to the field of low-end chips, so that we have been doing a hard, tiring and unprofitable business, once we enter the field of high-end chips, when we want to master the core technology, all kinds of suppression restrictions will come.
Microsoft's withdrawal from China's business and taking away core technology research and development personnel is just a wave in the Sino-US scientific and technological competition, which is not of much significance in the long river of history, but it makes us more determined to take the road of independent research and development, and I also firmly believe that the wise and hard-working Chinese will definitely walk out of a broad road of their own.
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