The US government has restricted the export of high-end artificial intelligence chips to China for the past two years, citing the need to limit Chinese military capabilities.
Provide access to such advanced chips or devices AI models However, using the cloud does not constitute a violation of US regulations, as only exports or transfers of a product, software or technology are regulated.
A Reuters review of more than 50 bidding documents posted over the past year in publicly available Chinese databases showed at least 11 Chinese entities have sought access to restricted U.S. technologies or cloud services.
Among them, four explicitly named Amazon Web Services (AWS) as a cloud service provider, although they accessed the services through Chinese intermediary companies rather than from AWS directly.
The tender documents, which Reuters is the first to report, show the breadth of strategies Chinese entities are employing to secure advanced computing capacity and access generative artificial intelligence models. They also underscore how U.S. companies are capitalizing on China’s growing demand for computing power.
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“AWS complies with all applicable U.S. laws, including trade laws, with respect to the provision of AWS services in and outside of China,” a spokesperson for Amazon’s cloud business said. AWS controls nearly a third of the global cloud infrastructure market, according to research firm Canalys. In China, AWS is the sixth-largest cloud services provider, according to research firm IDC.
Shenzhen University spent 200,000 yuan ($27,996) on an AWS account to gain access to cloud servers powered by Nvidia A100 and H100 chips for an unspecified project, according to a March tender document. It obtained this service through an intermediary, Yunda Technology Ltd Co, according to the document.
Exports to China of the two Nvidia chips, which are used to power large language models (LLMs) such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT, are banned by the United States.
Shenzhen University and Yunda Technology did not respond to requests for comment. Nvidia declined to comment on Shenzhen University’s spending or any of the other Chinese entities’ deals.
Zhejiang Lab, a research institute developing its own LLM, GeoGPT, said in a tender document in April that it intended to spend 184,000 yuan to buy cloud computing services from AWS as its AI model could not obtain sufficient computing power from Alibaba, its home company.
A spokesman for Zhejiang Lab said the purchase did not go through, but did not respond to questions about the reason for the move or how it met the computing power requirements of its LLM. Alibaba’s cloud unit, Alicloud, did not respond to a request for comment.
Reuters could not determine whether the purchase went through.
The US government is now trying to tighten regulations to restrict access through the cloud.
“This loophole has concerned me for years and is long overdue to be addressed,” Michael McCaul, chairman of the U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee, told Reuters in a statement, referring to remote access to advanced U.S. computing via the cloud by foreign entities.
Legislation was introduced in Congress in April to empower the Commerce Department to regulate remote access to U.S. technology, but it is unclear when or if it will be passed.
A department spokesperson said it was working closely with Congress and “seeking additional resources to strengthen our existing controls that restrict PRC companies from accessing advanced artificial intelligence chips through remote access to cloud computing capacity.”
The Commerce Department also proposed a rule in January that would require U.S. cloud computing services to screen large users of AI models and report to regulators when they use U.S. cloud computing services to train large AI models capable of “malicious cyber activity.”
The rule, which has not yet been finalized, would also allow the Commerce secretary to impose bans on customers.
“We are aware that the Department of Commerce is considering new regulations and we comply with all applicable laws in the countries in which we operate,” the AWS spokesperson said.
Cloud demand in China
Chinese entities are also seeking access to Microsoft’s cloud services.
In April, Sichuan University announced in a tender document that it was building a generative AI platform and purchasing 40 million Microsoft Azure OpenAI tokens to support the execution of this project. The university’s procurement document in May showed that Sichuan Province Xuedong Technology Co Ltd supplied the tokens.
Microsoft did not respond to requests for comment. Sichuan University and Sichuan Province Xuedong Technology did not respond to requests for comment on the purchase.
OpenAI said in a statement that its own services are not supported in China and that Azure OpenAI operates under Microsoft policies. It did not comment on the tenders.
The Suzhou Advanced Research Institute of the University of Science and Technology of China (USTC) said in a tender document in March that it wanted to rent 500 cloud servers, each powered by eight Nvidia A100 chips, for an unspecified purpose.
The tender was conducted by Hefei Advanced Computing Center Operation Management Co Ltd, a procurement document showed in April, but the document did not name the cloud services provider and Reuters was unable to determine its identity.
USTC was added to a U.S. export control list known as the “Entity List” in May for acquiring U.S. quantum computing technology that could aid China’s military and for participating in the development of its nuclear program.
USTC and the Hefei Advanced Computing Center did not respond to requests for comment.
Beyond restricted AI chips
Amazon has offered Chinese organizations access not only to advanced AI chips, but also to advanced AI models like Anthropic’s Claude that they cannot access otherwise, according to public postings, tenders and marketing materials reviewed by Reuters.
“Bedrock offers a selection of leading LLMs, including notable closed-source models such as Anthropic’s Claude 3,” said Chu Ruisong, president of AWS Greater China, at a generative AI-themed conference in Shanghai in May, referring to its cloud platform.
In several Chinese-language posts for AWS developers and customers, Amazon highlighted the opportunity to test “world-class AI models” and mentioned Chinese gaming company Source Technology as one of its customers using Claude.
Amazon has dedicated sales teams to serve Chinese customers domestically and internationally, according to two former Amazon executives.
After Reuters reached out to Amazon for comment, the company updated dozens of posts on its Chinese-language channels with a note saying some of its services were not available in its China cloud regions. It also removed several promotional posts, including one about Source Technology. Amazon did not explain the reason for removing the posts and did not respond to a Reuters query.
“Amazon Bedrock customers are subject to Anthropic’s end-user license agreement, which prohibits access to Claude in China through both Amazon’s Bedrock API (application programming interface) and Anthropic’s own API,” the AWS spokesperson said.
Anthropic stated that it does not support or allow customers or end users within China to access Claude.
“However, subsidiaries or product divisions of China-based companies may use Claude if the subsidiary is located in a supported region outside of China,” an Anthropic spokesperson said.
Source Technology did not respond to a request for comment.
(1 dollar = 7.1440 Chinese yuan renminbi)
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