Microsoft continues to warn that the US is vulnerable to cyberattacks from China, but still maintains close ties to Chinese government research institutes that could serve as training grounds for the communist country's hacker armies I am doing it.
Microsoft's own analysis was released earlier this week. More evidence shows how Chinese cyberattacks threaten the US. But the tech giant, more than many other tech companies, maintains deep ties to the communist state. Tech giants don't seem concerned about engaging deeply with researchers in countries where the line between developing technology and hacking it is blurred.
Microsoft maintains a close working relationship with the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS). The Chinese Academy of Sciences is a prestigious research academy run by the Chinese government, and its institute has recently been sanctioned by the United States for allegedly trying to acquire American technology to aid China's military modernization. , records show.
Microsoft Research Asia (MSRA), Microsoft's flagship research institute in China, is working on research exchanges and technical training for CAS scholars, according to an open source document. In at least one case, Microsoft also funded a CAS program.
CAS has long been under scrutiny by the U.S. government due to its status as a Chinese government agency conducting cutting-edge research in dual-use and sensitive technologies such as advanced AI and quantum computing. In 2022, the CAS Institute of Computing Technology will Added to Department of Commerce Entity ListIt targets foreign organizations that “engage in, or pose a significant risk of engaging in, activities contrary to the national security or foreign policy interests of the United States.”
Microsoft accepts multiple researchers from the Institute into the Microsoft Research Asia training program, including at least one researcher who was mentored by the Institute after it was designated as an accredited entity. I am.
In May 2024, the Department of Commerce Added 4 more CAS institutions to entity list. The CAS force was added “to acquire and attempt to obtain U.S.-origin goods to assist China in improving its quantum technology capabilities,” which is critical to U.S. national security given its military use. influence
The House passed it in September 2024. HR1516 (DHS Restrictions on Confucius Institutes and Chinese Concerned Groups Act), if approved by the Senate. It will classify all organizations affiliated with the Chinese Academy of Sciences. It banned cooperation with US higher education institutions due to the “concerning presence of China.”
Microsoft CAS Visiting Scholar
Microsoft has worked closely with CAS for years on several initiatives involving advanced AI and other sensitive technologies. Many of these partnerships included mentoring of CAS researchers by Microsoft.
The Star Track program (铸星计划) is a visiting scholar program of Microsoft Research Asia. star leap program (星跃计划) is a similar initiative for graduate students launched in 2021. Microsoft featured several notable alumni of these programs who are affiliated with CAS.
Shortly after CAS Institute of Computing Technology was added to the Entity List in December 2022, Microsoft hosted Liu Guodong, a Ph.D. Researched “High Performance Distributed Deep Learning” for one year through the Star Leap program as a student at CAS Institute Mentors from both MSRA and Microsoft Research in the US.
Microsoft's Chinese press release about the mentorship program describes his work at Microsoft as follows (translated by Google):
After completing his scientific research work for the day, Liu Guodong, a doctoral student at the Institute of Computing Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, stepped out of the Microsoft Building and raised his head toward the stars. The warm melodies of the Soda Green Band were playing in his headphones.
Through his one-year internship “Star Leap Project” at Microsoft Asian Institute, Liu Guodong focused on acceleration under the guidance of two mentors, Miao Houshan and Saeed Maleki, both senior R&D engineers at Microsoft Redmond Institute. I did. of deep learning models.
As intended, The Star Leap Project builds bridges between great talent and research teams from two of Microsoft's leading research institutions, creating opportunities to work together on real frontier problems. According to Liu Guodongthis “scientific research trip across the ocean” not only allowed him to realize his scientific research ideas, but also gave him a new inspiration in his way of thinking and taste in scientific research.
Examples of CAS researchers at the Computing Technology Institute who have been mentored by Microsoft include:
- Professor Yao DiInstitute of Computing Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Start Track Program 2022. Yao is expert It helps you track and predict the movement of objects in real-time based on trajectory data.
- Professor Xiao LiInstitute of Computing Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Start Track Program 2021. Xiao's research during the program included the application of AI to biology and physics research.
Although the full roster of who participated in these programs and what they worked on is not publicly available, these programs include more than a handful of CAS affiliates mentioned in the Microsoft blog post above. may also include many CAS affiliates.
Collaboration between Microsoft and CAS scientists
The Chinese and Western databases include several scientific publications co-authored by Microsoft and CAS researchers (or students from the University of the Chinese Academy of Sciences) in the fields of artificial intelligence, machine learning, data mining, computer vision, and even cybersecurity. things are shown.
A non-exhaustive list of examples includes:
- positionIn: Revisiting a posterior search-based neural approach to solving the large-scale traveling salesman problem, Proceedings of the 41st International Conference on Machine Learning (2024).
- Q-sparse: All large-scale language models can be activated completely sparsely (preprint (2024)).
- The era of 1-bit LLM: All large language models are 1.58 bit, preprint (2024).
- Large-scale language models can understand and enhance emotional stimulipreprint (2023).
- Multimedia Intelligence OverviewJournal of Image and Graphics Special Issue]Journal of Image and Graphics 9 (2022).
- Optimization from sampleBig Data Research 5 (2021).
- Correlation-aware heuristic search for intelligent virtual machine provisioning in cloud systemsProceedings of the 35th AAAI Artificial Intelligence Conference (2021).
- generative adversarial network: From data generation to intelligence creation, Acta Automatica Sinica 5 (2018)
- Information Security Technology – ICT Supply Chain Security Risk Management Guide — Official national standard guidelines published in 2018. The committee that developed the standard included experts from Microsoft, CAS, several state agencies, and China's high-tech giants.
Microsoft's relationship with CAS dates back 10 years
Records show that Microsoft and CAS scientists have been in regular contact for more than a decade, and the relationship continues.
Examples include:
- CAS member He serves on the advisory board of the Microsoft Research Asia Theory Center. Established in 2021.
- 2017, MSRA Knowledge Computing Group Principal Researcher Visited CAS Automation Research Institute We will present research on big data/text analysis.
- In 2014, several high-ranking Microsoft scientists, including Padmanabhan Anandan from Microsoft Research and Zhou Ming from MSRA, visited the CAS Institute of Computing Technology to discuss machine vision research, particularly as it relates to sign language recognition. Ta. CAS Web Post He pointed out the existence of CAS's Visual Information Processing Learning Research Group (View View Information Processing and Learning Research Group), which is partially funded by MSRA.
Microsoft's deep ties to Chinese researchers, which extend to cybersecurity research, are at odds with the inescapable reality of Chinese cyber threats revealed by Microsoft's own analysis.
Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News, where he covers free speech and online censorship issues.
