The United States has launched a review of Chinese nationals’ involvement in managing sensitive cloud services for the US military, Washington’s defence chief has said.

US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said on Wednesday that he had ordered an audit of Microsoft’s use of Chinese citizens to help manage sensitive cloud services to determine if any security breaches had occurred.

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“The use of Chinese nationals to service Department of Defense cloud environments – it’s over,” Hegseth said in a video statement.

“We’ve issued a formal letter of concern to Microsoft documenting this breach of trust, and we’re requiring a third-party audit of Microsoft’s digital escort programme, including the code and the submissions by Chinese nationals.”

“Did they put anything in the code that we didn’t know about? We are going to find out,” Hegseth added.

Hegseth said he had also directed software providers to identify and end “any Chinese involvement in DOD systems”.

Hegseth’s order comes after an investigative report by ProPublica in July documented Microsoft’s employment of contractors in China and other foreign countries to maintain the Defense Department’s cloud systems in conjunction with US-based “digital escorts”.

Following the report, Microsoft announced that it would no longer use China-based technicians to support the military.

Hegseth, who announced an immediate review of China’s involvement in cloud services following the ProPublica report, said excluding Chinese nationals from sensitive systems was “common sense”.

“We expect vendors doing business with the Department of Defense to protect US national security ahead of profit maximisation,” he said.