(Reuters) – Microsoft will call for President Donald Trump’s team to ease the limits on chips that can be used in data centers for training AI models so they no longer apply to a group of U.S. allies, the Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday.
The proposal, mentioning allies including India, Switzerland and Israel, will be released in a Microsoft blog post, scheduled for release on Thursday, the report said.
Tighter U.S. restrictions on the exports of advanced artificial intelligence chips, such as those made by leader Nvidia, to Beijing have hurt the ability of American chipmakers and Big Tech to service one of the largest markets for semiconductors, accelerating a global race for AI infrastructure dominance.
While sanctioned telecommunications equipment maker Huawei and its domestic peers have struggled to match Nvidia in building top-end chips that could compete with the U.S. products, Chinese startup DeepSeek’s inference-focused, low-cost models could present an opening, analysts have said.
WSJ reported that, according to Microsoft, the unintended consequence of expanded export restrictions would be that allies facing limited U.S. chip supply would turn to China.
China is using proposed export restrictions to argue to other countries that it would be a better long-term partner for AI infrastructure than the U.S., WSJ quoted Microsoft President Brad Smith as saying in an interview.
Microsoft did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.
(Reporting by Arsheeya Bajwa in Bengaluru; Editing by Shilpi Majumdar)
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