Microsoft (Microsoft) is joining forces with other technology companies and industry associations to put pressure on the Trump administration to block a plan to ban the import of new models of optical transceivers from China. according toReutersAccording to the report, three people familiar with the matter revealed that the industry believes that this ban, developed by the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC), may further slow down the construction of US data centers and instead weaken the US’s lead over China in the AI race.
Microsoft went to the White House to lobby: the ban may bring data center construction to a "halt"
In August this year, the Trump administration announcedConsider banningThe reason for importing new models of optical transceivers from China is concerns that Beijing may use related components to steal data, plant malicious programs, or disrupt services at U.S. data centers.
Two sources said that Microsoft was one of the few companies to meet with officials from the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) and the National Security Council (NSC) at the time. The company's core argument to the government was that if the import ban made it more difficult to obtain components, it would further delay the overall deployment and cause irreparable harm to the United States' AI competitiveness.
John Miller, executive vice president for policy and legal director of the Information Technology Industry Council (ITI), a technology industry lobby group, also expressed opposition, emphasizing that this ban may bring the construction of data centers to a halt. He pointed out that many cloud companies have already purchased the AI chips required for implementation. Without optical transceivers to connect these chips in series, the chips can only sit idle and cannot exert their computing value.
Microsoft has hundreds of AI data centers, and optical transceivers have become a key component
Optical transceivers are responsible for transmitting data at the speed of light within the data center and between servers, routers, and switches through optical fibers. They are an indispensable component of the AI computing cluster interconnection. Some large data centers even require millions of optical transceivers to connect all equipment.
Take Microsoft as an example. According to Cleanview, a market intelligence company that tracks data center development trends, Microsoft currently has 35 data centers under construction in the United States and another 134 in the planning stage.
The direction of the FCC ban remains to be seen. Chinese companies account for nearly 30% of the global market.
This ban is still in the FCC's research and development stage. The scope and timetable of the formal rules have not yet been announced, and the original text does not specify the specific definition of "new models." According to an August Reuters report citing data from Counterpoint Research, Chinese company Innolight accounts for about 27% of the global data center optical transceiver market, showing that U.S. cloud companies are not low in dependence on China's supply chain.
Regarding the policy direction of the FCC, Chain News previously reported that Morgan Stanley speculated in a report on October 1 that the United States’ restrictions on Chinese optical transceivers may be implemented in phases starting from the 3.2T generation, and believed that American laser suppliers Lumentum (LITE) and Coherent (COHR) are expected to benefit from this.
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The wave of lobbying also reflects the fact that the FCC's deliberations have set off alarm bells throughout the industry. Cloud and AI players are currently scrambling to keep up with surging demand for their services, while also facing growing consumer backlash over rising electricity prices and water issues. Nowadays, the import policy of optical transceivers has become a new uncertain factor. Whether the construction of the data center can be promoted as scheduled has become the focus of the market.
this article Microsoft lobbies the White House to block China's optical transceiver ban: AI data center may be shut down first appeared in Chain News ABMedia。
