Bad news for China as this US tech giant shuts down Shanghai AI Research Lab amid...

Amazon, e-commerce giant, is reportedly shutting down its Shanghai artificial intelligence (AI) lab. With this, Amazon has become the latest US company to withdraw from Chinese research efforts amid rising geopolitical tensions, according to the Financial Times. Amazon's decision comes amidst rising tensions between Washington and Beijing, with the US increasing its scrutiny of American companies operating in China. Earlier, other US tech firms, including IBM and Microsoft, have scaled back their China-based research.

When was AWS Shanghai Lab set up?

Amazon Web Services (AWS) set up its Shanghai Lab in 2018. Wang Minjie, a scientist in the Shanghai lab, said in a post on social media that his team was “being dissolved due to strategic adjustments amid US-China tensions”. “Over the past six years, I’ve had the privilege of leading the team through the golden era of foreign research labs (in China),” he said in the WeChat post seen by FT.

How many employees are in AWS Shanghai AI Lab?

The headcount at the AWS Shanghai research lab is unclear. But in 2022, Amazon reported having more than 10,000 employees in China. AWS at its peak had more than 1,000 staff in China, according to people familiar with the matter, FT reported. The closure of Shanghai AI lab comes as Amazon cuts jobs globally. Last month, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy warned employees that rising AI adoption would lead to job losses across the organisation.

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