Amazon to sell part of its cloud operation to Chinese investor for $300m

Tech titan Amazon is set to sell part of its cloud computing business in China to partner Beijing Sinnet Technology for over $300m.

The e-commerce giant said it was not dropping its operations in the superpower, and added that it was retaining ownership of the vast majority of its intellectual property in the country.

Last year Amazon signed a deal with Sinnet so it could operate its services in China, most notably Amazon Web Services.

Sinnet said in a regulatory filing on Monday the move would allow the company to comply with China’s legal framework.

In a statement made to TechCrunch, Amazon denied reports that it was selling all of its AWS operations in China to Sinnet.

“AWS did not sell its business in China and remains fully committed to ensuring Chinese customers continue to receive AWS's industry leading cloud services,” the statement read.

“Chinese law forbids non-Chinese companies from owning or operating certain technology for the provision of cloud services. As a result, in order to comply with Chinese law, AWS sold certain physical infrastructure assets to Sinnet.”