Microsoft abruptly cuts services to Chinese university, genomics firm
US technology giant
Microsoft has abruptly suspended some services for a number of clients in mainland China, fuelling speculation about accelerating technological decoupling between the world's two largest economies.
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Guangzhou-based Sun Yat-sen University sent a notice to faculty and students on Tuesday night stating that Microsoft 365 services – including OneDrive, OneNote, and SharePoint – will cease operations on Thursday afternoon. 'Please log in to Microsoft 365 as soon as possible to retrieve personal data and files,' the university's network and information centre said in its email, which was seen by the South China Morning Post.
A staff member on the university's IT help desk said it was Microsoft's choice to terminate the school's business account.
The move comes just days after BGI Group, a leading Chinese genomics company, suddenly lost access to its own Microsoft services, including the Outlook email system and OneDrive cloud storage platform. Two employees of the company noted that the company was caught off guard by the sudden service suspension, which forced it to scramble for alternatives, including the emergency use of the WPS Office suite, from Beijing-based Kingsoft. The termination of service was first reported by Nikkei Asia.
Microsoft did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Wednesday. It has not made any public statements explaining the reason for the suspensions.
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BGI Group has been a target of US authorities. Several of its subsidiaries have been added to the US Commerce Department's trade blacklist in recent years.
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