US agencies and Anthropic accuse Chinese AI firms of industrial-scale model distillation
On September 9, 2026, the NSA, CISA, and FBI issued a joint advisory accusing Chinese AI companies, including DeepSeek, of conducting industrial-scale distillation campaigns. The following day, Anthropic released a report detailing how Chinese firms such as Alibaba, Moonshot AI, and DeepSeek allegedly used fake accounts and transfer stations outside China to distill Claude's capabilities, escalating as competition intensifies.
Coverage timeline
Techmeme
Reuters : The NSA, CISA, and FBI issue a joint advisory warning that Chinese AI companies, including DeepSeek, are conducting “industrial-scale” distillation campaigns — The U.S. government on Tuesday accused Chinese artificial intelligence companies of maliciously copying technology …
Wall Street Journal : Anthropic details distillation efforts by Chinese companies, like Moonshot and DeepSeek, sending user queries to Claude via “transfer stations” outside China — Anthropic says DeepSeek and Moonshot used thousands of fake accounts and millions of real user queries in ‘distillation’ effort to clone its AI capabilities
TechCrunch AIRussell Brandom
A new report released Thursday by Anthropic alleges persistent distillation attacks by China-based AI companies, which have escalated in recent months as competition in the space has intensified.