Observed Signal · Feb 24, 2026 · Regulation · Source: CNBC Technology · Impact: 4/5 · Sentiment: Negative
Anthropic Accuses Chinese Firms of AI Distillation Attacks
Anthropic accused three Chinese AI companies—DeepSeek, Moonshot AI and MiniMax—of coordinated 'distillation attack' campaigns that extracted capabilities from its Claude model by flooding it with specially crafted prompts. Anthropic said the firms used commercial proxy services to bypass access restrictions and estimated more than 16 million exchanges with Claude from roughly 24,000 fraudulently created accounts; MiniMax accounted for over 13 million exchanges. The complaints follow similar allegations from OpenAI about DeepSeek. Both companies framed the activity as a national security and intellectual-property concern, and Reuters reported U.S. officials found evidence DeepSeek trained a model on Nvidia’s Blackwell chip. Industry experts noted distillation is a common technique but said the controversy centers on alleged fraudulent access and possible violations of terms of service.
Allegations involve major US AI labs, possible large-scale IP extraction and fraudulent access, and intersect with national-security/export-control concerns (e.g., Nvidia Blackwell chip), which could drive regulatory scrutiny and affect industry competition and model access.
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Key Takeaways & Evidence Grounding
- Anthropic accused DeepSeek, Moonshot AI and MiniMax of coordinated 'distillation attack' campaigns against its Claude model.
- Anthropic estimated the three firms generated over 16 million exchanges with Claude using about 24,000 fraudulently created accounts.
- Anthropic said MiniMax drove the most traffic, with over 13 million exchanges.
- OpenAI previously raised similar complaints about DeepSeek and submitted an open letter to U.S. legislators alleging distillation attempts.
- Reuters reported U.S. officials found evidence DeepSeek trained a model on Nvidia's Blackwell chip, potentially violating export controls.
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Anthropic Blames Chinese Labs for AI Model Theft
Anthropic alleges three Chinese AI companies—DeepSeek, Moonshot AI and MiniMax—created more than 24,000 fake accounts to query its Claude model, generating over 16 million exchanges using a technique called "distillation" to improve their own models. Anthropic says the exchanges targeted Claude’s agentic reasoning, tool use and coding capabilities, and that the scale of extraction suggests access to advanced AI chips. The accusations arrive amid U.S. debates over export controls after the administration recently allowed exports of advanced chips (e.g., Nvidia H200) to China. Anthropic plans to invest in defenses against distillation attacks and is calling for a coordinated response from industry, cloud providers and policymakers, warning of potential national-security risks if safeguards are stripped from illicitly distilled models.
Anthropic accuses Chinese labs of stealing Claude via distillation
Anthropic's threat intelligence head, Jacob Klein, reports that Chinese AI labs, including Alibaba, Moonshot (Kimi), and DeepSeek, are illicitly using its Claude models via distillation to train cheaper competitors. The report details unauthorized distillation involving fraudulent accounts and stolen credit cards. Alibaba's operation peaked at 3 million daily exchanges from 3,500 fraudulent accounts to train Qwen models, while Moonshot routed ~300,000 Kimi user requests to Claude using 5,380 fake accounts, and DeepSeek conducted over 12 million attacks. The practice also exposed sensitive data, including surveillance footage of Chinese military sites and Russian government credentials. Anthropic says these actions violated terms and privacy laws, raising national security concerns. The Trump administration has called such distillation 'unacceptable,' and Anthropic, valued near $1 trillion, plans an IPO as early as October.
US Accuses Chinese AI Firms of Industrial-Scale Model Theft
The United States is escalating its technological conflict with China by targeting Chinese AI companies DeepSeek, Moonshot AI, and Alibaba for allegedly using model distillation to systematically extract capabilities from American AI systems. US authorities, citing national security concerns, accuse these firms of bypassing access restrictions and using automated methods to harvest model outputs for training their own models. Anthropic reported identifying over 3.4 million suspicious interactions with its Claude models from Moonshot AI, while OpenAI flagged activities consistent with adversarial distillation attempts by DeepSeek. The dispute highlights the growing importance of model distillation as both a legitimate development tool and a point of contention, with potential implications for licensing, trade secrets, and access controls. The US government is treating advanced AI as dual-use technology, similar to chip export restrictions, which could lead to sanctions affecting cloud services, chips, and other components.
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