Washington: The United States is planning to restrict Chinese company's access to US cloud computing services in coming weeks, with Microsoft and Amazon possibly subject to restrictions, The Wall Street Journal newspaper reported on Tuesday, citing sources.

The measures, if adopted, will require the companies to obtain the US's government permission to provide their services that use advanced artificial-intelligence chips in China, the newspaper reported.

The report said that American officials and lawmakers were also looking into limiting the activities of the Alibaba Group and Tencent Holdings Ltd. in the United States.

In late June, news media reported that Washington was considering new curbs on exports of artificial intelligence chips to China due to security concerns as they could be used for weapon development and cyberattacks.

The US Commerce Department may reportedly announce new curbs in July to prevent the exports of chips made by American IT companies Nvidia and Advanced Micro Devices and other chip-makers to China and other countries.

The relations between China and the US have been strained partly due to the latest escalation around Taiwan that took place in April after Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen met with US House Speaker Kevin McCarthy.

(With UNI inputs)