[News] Amazon Reportedly Shuts Down Shanghai AI Lab as Tech Giants Scale Back in China

According to ijiwei, Minjie Wang, Chief Applied Scientist at the AWS Shanghai AI Lab, stated that the AWS Shanghai AI Research Institute—also the last remaining overseas research lab of AWS—has officially been disbanded.

An Amazon spokesperson confirmed the report to be accurate, according to ITHome, citing Chinese outlet National Business Daily. ITHome previously noted that, according to sources, Amazon is undergoing organizational restructuring, with several departments within its cloud computing unit AWS experiencing a round of layoffs affecting at least several hundred positions.

Established in 2018, AWS Shanghai AI lab has developed the Deep Graph Library, an open-source framework for graph neural networks that reportedly generated nearly $1 billion in revenue for Amazon’s e-commerce business, according to Wang as cited by ijiwei.

Tech Companies Retreat from China: IBM, Microsoft, and Intel

As noted in a report by CTOL Digital, Amazon’s move reflects a broader trend, with several major Western tech firms gradually scaling back their operations in China throughout 2024 and into 2025. In February 2025, South China Morning Post indicates that IBM is closing one of its key entities in China, 32 years after it was established to oversee local R&D operations. The move follows last year’s layoffs of over 1,000 employees across the IBM China Development Lab and China Systems Lab in multiple cities, the report adds.

Additionally, Microsoft has shut down its Internet of Things (IoT) and AI Insider research center in Shanghai, according to another report from South China Morning Post. Microsoft’s joint venture, Shanghai Wicresoft, also ceased operations in April—a move expected to result in the layoff of approximately 2,000 employees, according to Reuters, citing Chinese outlet Caijing.

Last month, ijiwei reported that Chinese social media users claimed Intel China may carry out layoffs affecting up to 20% of its workforce, with some teams facing even deeper cuts.

Read more

• [News] Microsoft Dismisses China Exit Rumors as JV Shuts Down Operations, Reportedly Cutting 2,000 Jobs
• [News] Tech Giants Retreat from China: Microsoft Reportedly Shuts down AI Lab in Shanghai

(Photo credit: Amazon)