Global Tech Outage: China Remains Relatively Unscathed As Reduced Dependence On Foreign Products, Services Pays Off

China's critical information technology (IT) infrastructure, especially in the aviation and banking sectors, remained relatively unaffected even as a massive technology (tech) outage swept many other parts of the world, causing massive disruption to banking operations, grounding flights, and even adversely affecting emergency services.

The outages were caused by a single update from Austin-based CrowdStrike, a significant provider of malware and virus protection to a large number of companies, which affected Windows-based systems worldwide.

Millions of Microsoft Windows users across the world experienced the "Blue Screen of Death" error that caused their computers to shut down or restart.

CrowdStrike Chief Executive George Kurtz posted on microblogging platform X that the issue had been identified and a fix had been deployed, adding that “this is not a security incident or cyberattack.”

"CrowdStrike is actively working with customers impacted by a defect found in a single content update for Windows hosts. Mac and Linux hosts are not impacted. This is not a security incident or cyberattack," the cybersecurity firm said in a statement.

China Relatively Unaffected By Outage

While the outage affected foreign businesses and luxury hotels in China, airports, banks, and other critical infrastructure largely remained unaffected.

Over the years, China has made a concerted effort to reduce dependence on foreign service providers such as Microsoft and cybersecurity firms like CrowdStrike. It plans to eventually scrap the use of Microsoft’s Windows operating system and foreign-made database software from computers used in the country.

It is also working on a priority roadmap to phase out foreign systems in military and state institutions.

China has achieved steady progress in developing homegrown chips and operating systems to reduce its reliance on foreign technologies amid a fierce trade and technology war with the United States (US).

The country created an open platform to accelerate the development of a homegrown desktop operating system. Kylinsoft, a state-owned tech enterprise, is working with more than 10 Chinese entities, including the National Industrial Information Security Development Research Centre, to set up an open-source code community.

Through its “Made in China 2025” mission, China is deploying a variety of policy actions including generous government subsidies, infusion of capital to state-owned enterprises, and intellectual property acquisition to close the technological gap with the West.