May 16 (Reuters) - Microsoft ( MSFT ) is asking about

700 to 800 people in its China-based cloud-computing and

artificial-intelligence operations to consider transferring

outside the country, the Wall Street Journal reported on

Thursday.

The employees, mostly engineers with Chinese nationality,

were earlier in the week offered an option to transfer to

countries including the U.S., Ireland, Australia and New

Zealand, the report said, citing people familiar with the

matter.

The move comes amid spiralling US-China relations as the

Biden administration cracks down on various sectors of Chinese

imports, including electric vehicle (EV) batteries, computer

chips and medical products.

A Microsoft ( MSFT ) spokesperson told the Journal that providing

internal opportunities is part of its global business and

confirmed the company had shared an optional internal transfer

opportunity with a subset of employees.

Reuters reported earlier this month that the U.S. Commerce

Department is considering a new regulatory push to restrict the

export of proprietary or closed source AI models, whose software

and the data it is trained on are kept under wraps.

The spokesperson, however, told the newspaper that the

company remains committed to the region and will continue to

operate in China.

Microsoft ( MSFT ) didn't immediately respond to a Reuters request

for comment.