(Reuters) -Amazon is shutting down its Shanghai artificial intelligence lab, which was established by its cloud services arm in 2018, the Financial Times reported on Wednesday.
The report comes after Reuters first reported last week that the company had cut at least hundreds of jobs globally in Amazon Web Services, just a month after Amazon CEO Andy Jassy warned of a workforce reduction due to adoption of generative AI tools.
In response to a query on the FT report on the Shanghai AI lab, an Amazon spokesperson reiterated it was eliminating some roles across AWS. The spokesperson did not comment on the FT report or confirm that the Shanghai AI lab was being shut down.
Amazon said on Wednesday the AWS role reductions are not primarily because of AI.
Amazon’s decision to shut the lab also comes amid rising tensions between Washington and Beijing, with the U.S. increasing its scrutiny of American companies operating in China.
Wang Minjie, a scientist in the Shanghai lab, said his team was “being dissolved due to strategic adjustments amid U.S.-China tensions,” the newspaper said, citing a post on WeChat.
Reuters could not confirm the headcount at the AWS Shanghai research lab.
(Reporting by Gursimran Kaur and Surbhi Misra in Bengaluru; Additonal reporting by Devika Nair; Editing by Vijay Kishore and Leroy Leo)
