Microsoft maintains AI services in Hong Kong, as OpenAI curbs API access from China

The US tech giant has been offering eligible Hong Kong customers access to OpenAI tools such as ChatGPT since last year

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Microsoft Hong Kong says it will continue offer its AI services to eligible customers in the city. Photo: AFP

Published: 2:30pm, 27 Jun 2024Updated: 3:17pm, 27 Jun 2024

Microsoft said it would continue to allow customers in Hong Kong to use OpenAI’s artificial intelligence (AI) models through its Azure cloud computing platform, after the start-up announced it was moving to restrict access to its services from unsupported regions such as mainland China and Hong Kong.

“There has been no change to our Azure OpenAI service offerings in Hong Kong,” Microsoft’s local office said in a statement to the South China Morning Post on Thursday. “We continue to provide access to eligible customers in Hong Kong, via models deployed in regions outside Hong Kong.”

“As an independent company, OpenAI makes its own decisions,” Microsoft added.

OpenAI, which counts Microsoft as its biggest investor, earlier this week sent a notice to developers in “unsupported countries and territories”, which include mainland China and Hong Kong. The firm said it would take “additional measures” to block attempts from those regions to access its AI models via application programming interfaces (APIs), starting July 9.

An API is software that allows two computer programs to communicate with each other.

OpenAI’s services, which have been introduced in over 188 countries and regions, are officially unavailable in mainland China and Hong Kong, where users often access popular models such as ChatGPT through virtual private networks or third-party apps, while developers turn to proxies and outbound servers to bypass restrictions.