Don’t let China take over the cloud — US national security depends on it 

Excerpt

Most Americans would assume Huawei was left for dead after the U.S. government led a global multi-pronged campaign against the company’s 5G business in 2019. However, in recent years Huawei has reinvented itself into, among other things, a leading cloud services provider (CSP). They are now expanding rapidly around the world, while other companies from the People’s Republic of China (PRC) like Alibaba, Tencent and Baidu are following suit to capture the global market.  

Cloud is the backbone of nearly all emerging technologies, including 5G, AI, robotics, autonomous vehicles and biotechnology. If China gains the upper hand in building the world’s cloud networks, information infrastructure will be built to PRC standards, resulting in users becoming significantly more reliant on PRC technology going forward.  

This is especially troubling as China’s national intelligence laws make it incumbent on PRC service providers to cooperate with any government requests — meaning Beijing can use gain access to stored data without the owner’s consent. In the future, even more data will go through the cloud than goes through telecom networks. It is therefore imperative that the PRC cannot have access to this data, which could support their commercial and military ambitions. 

Adm. Mark Montgomery (Ret.) is senior director of the Center on Cyber and Technology Innovation at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Eric Sayers is a nonresident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.