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.
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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.
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