Sports · Sun Belt Post
In an alert published Tuesday, the FBI, the National Security Agency, and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency accused top Chinese AI companies of systematically mining cutting-edge AI models from American companies since 2024. The practice, known as distillation, involves using advanced American models—such as Anthropic’s Claude, OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Google’s Gemini, and xAI’s Grok—to build their own AI systems. The U.S. claims this practice is widespread in the AI industry, often violating terms of service.
American companies and government officials have increasingly alleged that Chinese models are built by distilling American ones. The U.S. has accused China for years of stealing intellectual property from American companies. Tuesday’s report suggested that the distillation campaign may have been conducted with Chinese government awareness, though it did not claim direct involvement.
The White House frequently describes the U.S. as racing China to develop the most cutting-edge AI. President Donald Trump is scheduled to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping on September 24. Officials from both governments have traded barbs in recent weeks over whether China has been inappropriately stealing AI trade secrets.
The report accused six leading Chinese AI developers: DeepSeek, Moonshot AI, Alibaba, MiniMax, StepFun, and Z.AI. It detailed specific allegations, such as certain Chinese models being optimized for topics like legal specialization, agentic functions, and coach/assistant capabilities, derived from particular American models. The report stated that the scale and sophistication of these campaigns indicate distillation is not merely supplementary but the core of Chinese AI development.
American companies have previously accused DeepSeek and others of inappropriately basing their models on ChatGPT and Gemini, respectively. The report also included recommendations for U.S. companies, such as verifying users of subscription services and comparing notes on suspicious behavior. In April, Michael Kratsios, director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, circulated a memorandum highlighting Chinese distillation of American AI systems as a critical issue.
He argued that this practice allows Chinese companies to freeload off American innovation and circumvent safety guardrails. In July, Kratsios declared on X that Moonshot had distilled Anthropic’s advanced Fable model to develop its Kimi K3 system, distinguishing between legitimate distillation for efficiency and large-scale, covert industrial espionage.
Source: NBC News
