Since the reform and opening up, because our mainland has a vast market, all kinds of supporting facilities are becoming more and more perfect, attracting many foreign companies to come to China to do business, not only to invest in the construction of factories, open up the market, but also many giants to set up research and development centers here.
However, as our development is getting faster and faster, the United States has unilaterally promoted "decoupling", so many American companies have begun to withdraw from R&D centers, Micron and Qualcomm have done this before, and now Microsoft is also withdrawing, which is worth pondering.
Recently, some media said that Microsoft's headquarters has issued an email notice that it plans to evacuate several teams engaged in AI research and development in China, involving hundreds of employees, to the United States, Australia, Ireland and other places.
According to multiple employees, they need to make a decision by June 7 to either move out or leave with compensation.
If the employee agrees to relocate, Microsoft will even solve the problem of family visas, which shows how determined the technical staff is to relocate. As for Microsoft's approach, many media interpreted it as "cutting" and deliberately removed senior technical personnel.
However, Microsoft is not the first to do this, there have been many American companies like this before, and the most memorable is Micron, because Micron's "eating and smashing the pot" move is shameful, and it was finally investigated by us and tasted the bitter fruit.
Prior to this, in January 2022, Micron, the American memory chip giant, began to take action to dissolve the DRAM design department of about 150 people in the Shanghai R&D center, of which more than 40 core R&D personnel provided immigration qualifications to the United States.
In this regard, Micron explained that only the design department, but also the sales and testing departments, and the Xi'an factory will not be evacuated.
In addition to Micron, Qualcomm also did a similar incident last year. In September 2023, the news of Qualcomm's layoffs came out, and there were rumors of evacuating Shanghai, closing offices, and withdrawing domestic technicians, and later Qualcomm did lay off employees.
However, Qualcomm was laying off employees worldwide, not just in China, and disbanded the WiFi R&D team in Shanghai at that time.
But there is also a story in it, everyone knows that Huawei is very leading in WIFI technology, and later there was a leak of core technology, and the police also arrested the relevant personnel, and then Qualcomm disbanded the WiFi team and released WiFi7 technology before Huawei.
Judging from a series of operations by Microsoft, Micron, Qualcomm, etc., what they want to evacuate is not a few businesses, but more importantly, they need to transfer core technologies, so they will transfer employees who master core technologies and provide them with immigration convenience.
Microsoft, Micron, and Qualcomm "packaged" to take away core technical personnel, in fact, to prevent technology "leakage" to the greatest extent.
For technical personnel, this opportunity is indeed rare, because it is not easy to get a green card in the United States. Now, with such an opportunity suddenly, it is inevitable that some people will be very excited, thinking that they are lucky to catch up with a good opportunity.
But while excited, I also hope that they can think carefully about it, although immigration opportunities are rare, things are not so simple. Nowadays, people provide you with the convenience of immigrating to the United States, and that is because you still have value in terms of technology.
But this does not mean that it will last long, once the technology is eliminated and loses its use value, the result is that it will be quickly abandoned by others.
Because behind the operation of Microsoft, Micron, and Qualcomm, it is actually "cutting" in technology, which is similar to the implementation of chip restrictions by the United States, and the transfer of technical talents is actually to prevent the "leakage" of advanced technology to us.
Since last year, the United States has increased restrictions on AI, and has restricted the shipment of high-end AI chips such as NVIDIA and AMD to Chinese companies.
Microsoft is very leading in AI research and development, and it will naturally be targeted by the United States, so it is not easy to withdraw from the team.
From Russia's previous experience, it is clear that under the order of the United States, almost all relevant American companies quickly implemented supply cuts or stopped services, and Intel, Microsoft, Qualcomm, Apple, Google and other technology giants were no exception.
It can be seen from this that the slogan of "science and technology without borders" has no meaning, if it is completely feasible in the era of open competition, but Western countries have used technological superiority as a tool for sanctions, and technology research and development personnel should really consider it.
We should be more vigilant about this, and then don't believe that "it is better to buy than to make", now the competition in science and technology is becoming more and more fierce, we must adhere to independent research and development, and constantly improve the strength of domestic substitution, in order to be invincible in the future competition!