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The US State Department has amplified its campaign against alleged Chinese theft of American AI technology, issuing warnings to global diplomatic counterparts and targeting Chinese AI firms amid heightened tensions in tech competition.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
The Trump administration has stepped up its public campaign against alleged Chinese theft of American artificial intelligence technology, with the State Department directing diplomats to warn foreign counterparts about what it describes as efforts to extract know-how from US-made AI models, according to a cable seen by Reuters. The message, sent to posts around the world on Friday, said officials should raise concerns over the \u201cextraction and distillation\u201d of proprietary AI systems and prepare the ground for further outreach by Washington.<\/p>\n
The move follows earlier warnings from OpenAI, which told US lawmakers in February that DeepSeek had targeted the ChatGPT maker and other leading American AI firms in an effort to reproduce their models for training its own systems, Reuters reported. On Thursday, Axios said a memo from Michael Kratsios, the White House\u2019s top science and technology adviser, accused China-backed operatives of running \u201cindustrial-scale\u201d campaigns to steal and replicate frontier AI models, using proxy accounts and other tactics to avoid detection. The Associated Press reported that the administration is also preparing to work more closely with domestic AI companies on countermeasures.<\/p>\n
The dispute has become another flashpoint in the wider US-China technology rivalry, which both sides have tried to manage even as suspicions deepen. The cable said the State Department\u2019s aim was to warn about the risks of using AI models distilled from US proprietary systems and to lay the groundwork for follow-up action by the US government. It also named Chinese AI companies including Moonshot AI and MiniMax, while saying distilled models could appear competitive on some benchmarks at lower cost but may not reproduce the original systems\u2019 full capabilities or safety features.<\/p>\n
China has rejected the accusations. The Chinese Embassy in Washington told Reuters the claims were \u201cgroundless\u201d and amounted to attacks on China\u2019s AI progress. DeepSeek, which drew global attention with its low-cost model, also rolled out a preview of a new version on Friday, adapted for Huawei chip technology, underscoring Beijing\u2019s push for greater self-reliance in advanced computing. The timing of the accusations is sensitive, coming just before President Donald Trump\u2019s expected visit to Beijing and after months of relative calm in the relationship.<\/p>\n
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