‘Must guard against all…’: Microsoft’s alleged use of Chinese engineers to maintain military cloud computing systems questioned by US senator

A US senator has reportedly questioned Microsoft’s alleged use of Chinese engineers to maintain military cloud computing systems. This inquiry follows a ProPublica report from earlier this week that accused Microsoft of employing Chinese engineers to work on US military computing systems. In a letter sent to Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth, Senator Tom Cotton (R-AR), who chairs the Senate Intelligence Committee, has requested additional information from the Pentagon about the tech giant’s reported use of Chinese engineers for US military systems as it raises concerns about potential national security risks, a report by the news agency Reuters claims.

The report claimed that these engineers operated under the supervision of US “digital escorts” who were hired through subcontractors.