The tech giant’s Asia research team is applying for visas to move top staff in China to Canada, with up to 40 people potentially affected, sources told the Financial Times. Microsoft disputed the report, telling the FT that while it is setting up a new lab in Vancouver aligned with the Beijing one, it will be staffed from labs across the world. (Financial Times)

Talking point: The move comes amid simmering technology tensions between the U.S. and China, with Washington seeking to contain Beijing’s development of AI by cutting off access to chips and collaborating on the technology with regional allies. A Microsoft researcher in China told the FT the outpost had internal talks about the risk of official harassment. Vancouver is already a major site for the Redmond, Wash.-based tech giant, with 1,700 staff as of March 2021. It also has an AI research lab in Montreal, where it acquired deep-learning startup Maluuba in January 2017.