The U.S. wants cloud service providers such as Amazon.com and Microsoft to identify and actively investigate foreign clients developing artificial intelligence applications on their platforms, part of a widening tech conflict between Washington and Beijing.
The White House proposal, released Monday, requires the firms to reveal foreign customers’ names and IP addresses. Amazon and its peers, which include Alphabet’s Google, would need to develop a process to collect those details and report any suspicious activity, according to draft rule published Sunday.
If implemented, Washington could use those requirements to choke off a major avenue through which Chinese firms may access the data centers and servers crucial to training and hosting AI. They also place the onus of collecting, storing and analyzing customer data on the cloud services, a burden not unlike strict "know-your-customer” rules that govern the financial industry.