Google is reportedly in talks with several companies in China over the possibility of bringing its cloud services to the nation, as it looks to re-enter a market where many of its products are blocked.

The Alphabet-owned tech giant is talks with Tencent Holding, Inspur Group, and other companies from the world’s second largest economy, reports Bloomberg, citing people familiar with the discussions.

The talks are said to have begun earlier this year with Google now having whittled potential candidates down to three companies at the end of March. However, despite talks progressing between Google and the firms, it is unclear if the plans will go ahead in the wake of heightened trade tensions between the US and China over accusations of spying, among other things.

Once Google selects a partner, it hopes to run its internet-based services via data centres and servers provided by the Chinese company.

For the most part, China has been absent from the Chinese market since 2010 – when it pulled its search engine from the country over censorship concerns – but that is all set to change.

Last week, it was first reported by The Intercept that Google is planning on launching a version of its search engine in China that would block certain websites and terms.