As per the description, I think Peter Lee's statement is true. Labs get moved around and changed for all different reasons. I think within a few years there will be more pressure on US companies to re-shore / friend-shore critical research initiatives, but, even in that case, Microsoft will still probably want to keep an AI research lab open in China (why give up access to talent unless you have to?) and just use it for relatively mundane research that is less about moving the frontier forward. In theory, this would enable them to focus more resources in other labs toward frontier research.
As per the description, I think Peter Lee's statement is true. Labs get moved around and changed for all different reasons. I think within a few years there will be more pressure on US companies to re-shore / friend-shore critical research initiatives, but, even in that case, Microsoft will still probably want to keep an AI research lab open in China (why give up access to talent unless you have to?) and just use it for relatively mundane research that is less about moving the frontier forward. In theory, this would enable them to focus more resources in other labs toward frontier research.