Amid escalating geopolitical tensions between the United States and China, Amazon has decided to shut down its Artificial Intelligence (AI) research lab in Shanghai. This move comes at a time when other U.S. companies like IBM and Microsoft are also scaling back their research operations in China.
Amazon’s lab was established in 2018 by its Amazon Web Services (AWS) division. The lab’s chief scientist, Wang Mingjie, stated on social media that the team was disbanded due to “strategic changes resulting from the tense U.S.-China relationship.” According to him, the team has published over 100 scientific papers in the past six years and contributed to the development of open-source neural network algorithms that helped Amazon generate approximately $1 billion in revenue.
An Amazon spokesperson confirmed that some teams within AWS are experiencing job cuts, coinciding with broader global layoffs at the company. Amazon CEO Andy Jassy also said last month that the advancement of AI would lead to automation of certain roles across the company, resulting in workforce reductions.
Currently, Amazon’s operations in China are primarily focused on serving international companies operating within the country and local tech firms using AWS for global operations. However, U.S. government policies restricting China’s access to advanced chips and cloud services are making international research collaborations more difficult for Chinese researchers.
This is not Amazon’s first move to scale back in China. The company exited the e-commerce market in 2019 and shut down its Kindle e-book store in 2023.
