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US Agencies Allege Chinese Firms Systematically Distilled Frontier AI Models

Emerging Technology Risk · 17 sources · Updated 2mo ago · First seen Sep 8, 2026

The NSA, CISA, and FBI issued a joint advisory alleging that China-based AI companies have systematically extracted proprietary capabilities from U.S. frontier models since late 2024. The advisory named DeepSeek, Moonshot AI, Alibaba, MiniMax, StepFun, and Z.AI, alleging campaigns targeting variants of Anthropic Claude, OpenAI ChatGPT, Google Gemini, and Grok.

The agencies said the companies allegedly generated billions of tokens and millions of model interactions through unauthorized or obscured access, distributing requests across accounts, APIs, cloud providers, aggregators, proxies, and gray-market services to evade safeguards and attribution. They characterized the activity as part of China’s AI-development strategy and urged AI developers, government agencies, and allied partners to improve detection, adjust response measures, and share threat intelligence.

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Event timeline

How this story unfolded

Events from the most recent confirmed update back to the earliest known activity.

9 events · 2024 – Sep 2026

Reported Sep 9, 20262mo ago
China rejects U.S. accusations of AI-model distillation
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning rejected U.S. allegations that Chinese AI companies maliciously copied U.S. AI technology through model distillation. She said China's AI progress resulted from domestic scientific and technological self-reliance and called on the United States to stop what China characterized as false accusations and smears.
teiss - News - US accuses Chinese AI firms of 'malicious' copying of AI technology
Reported Sep 8, 20262mo ago
NSA, CISA and FBI issue joint advisory on Chinese AI distillation
The NSA, CISA and FBI issued a joint advisory alleging that DeepSeek, Moonshot AI, Alibaba, MiniMax, StepFun and Z.AI systematically targeted Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini and Grok models through APIs, cloud providers, aggregators, proxies and other routes. The advisory recommended enhanced detection, response controls and intelligence sharing among government, industry and allies.
Intelligence agencies warn of China’s large-scale AI model distillation efforts - Nextgov/FCW
Reported Sep 8, 20262mo ago
Michael Kratsios accuses Moonshot AI of distilling Anthropic Fable
White House Office of Science and Technology Policy Director Michael Kratsios publicly accused Moonshot AI of attempting to extract proprietary functions from Anthropic's Fable model.
Intelligence agencies warn of China’s large-scale AI model distillation efforts - Nextgov/FCW
Reported Sep 8, 20262mo ago
Anthropic raises similar allegations of Chinese model distillation
Anthropic reportedly made similar accusations concerning Chinese activity intended to distill capabilities from its AI models.
Intelligence agencies warn of China’s large-scale AI model distillation efforts - Nextgov/FCW
Sep 2026
Google reports increased targeting of proprietary AI assets
Google's Threat Intelligence Group reported that threat actors were increasingly targeting proprietary AI models, source code, model weights, and cloud-compute quotas.
The Distillation Wars: How AA26-251A Turned Attribution Into America’s New Weapon of AI Diplomacy - Center for Cyber Diplomacy and International Security
Feb 2026
Anthropic disrupts six China-linked Claude distillation campaigns
Anthropic said it detected and disrupted six illicit Claude-distillation campaigns by China-based AI labs since February 2026, including a 151-million-exchange Alibaba-affiliated operation and campaigns attributed to Moonshot, DeepSeek, Zhipu/Z.ai, Xiaomi, SenseTime, and MiniMax. It said it responded with account restrictions and identity verification, summarized internal reasoning, and protections against reasoning-context manipulation.
Anthropic Says Seven China-Based AI Labs Ran Industrial-Scale Claude Distillation Attacks
Dec 2025
Anthropic report allegedly details Claude prompt proxying and reasoning extraction
A purported Anthropic threat-intelligence report alleged that seven PRC-based AI labs ran Claude-distillation campaigns from December 2025 through August 2026. It alleged that DeepSeek and Moonshot routed customer prompts to Claude Opus without users' knowledge while extracting reasoning-related outputs, using fraudulent accounts, proxies, compromised API keys, and cross-session replay techniques.
DeepSeek and Moonshot Accused of Stealing Claude AI Reasoning and Customer Data | The CyberSec Guru
Jan 2025
OpenAI accuses DeepSeek of model distillation
OpenAI accused DeepSeek of conducting model distillation to extract capabilities from its models.
What is AI distillation? The new threat facing western tech giants as US accuses Chinese firms of ‘aggressively’ copying frontier models | IT Pro
2024
Chinese AI firms allegedly begin frontier-model distillation campaigns
U.S. agencies allege that China-based AI companies began industrial-scale campaigns to extract proprietary capabilities from U.S. frontier AI models in late 2024, using billions of tokens and millions of interactions.
Intelligence agencies warn of China’s large-scale AI model distillation efforts - Nextgov/FCW

Linked entities

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Vulnerabilities, threat actors, malware, products, organizations, and breaches Mallory has linked to this story.

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Threat actors

8 linked

DeepSeek Moonshot AI Minimax Moonshot Alibaba Z.AI StepFun Zhipu

Affected products

2 linked

ChatgptClaude

Organizations

15 linked

Alibaba GroupDeepseekAnthropicOpenaixAIGoogleZhipu AIMiniMaxMoonshot AIZ.ai+5 more

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Source coverage

Sources

17 references tracked. Mallory keeps watching after this page renders.

The Hacker NewsNews · Sep 11, 2026

Anthropic Says Seven China-Based AI Labs Ran Industrial-Scale Claude Distillation AttacksOpen source ↗

ItproNews · Sep 11, 2026

What is AI distillation? The new threat facing western tech giants as US accuses Chinese firms of ‘aggressively’ copying frontier models | IT ProOpen source ↗

ThecybersecguruNews · Sep 11, 2026

DeepSeek and Moonshot Accused of Stealing Claude AI Reasoning and Customer Data | The CyberSec GuruOpen source ↗

Techrepublic Com SecurityNews · Sep 10, 2026

US Accuses Six Chinese AI Firms of Distilling Frontier ModelsOpen source ↗

9 additional sources from 09-09-2026 to 10-09-2026

Cryptika BlogNews · Sep 9, 2026

CISA Warns Chinese AI Firms Extract Billions of Tokens From Claude, GPT, Gemini and Grok | Cryptika CybersecurityOpen source ↗

Cyber Security NewsNews · Sep 9, 2026

CISA Warns Chinese AI Firms Extract Billions of Tokens From Claude, GPT, Gemini and GrokOpen source ↗

NextgovNews · Sep 8, 2026

Intelligence agencies warn of China’s large-scale AI model distillation efforts - Nextgov/FCWOpen source ↗

CyberscoopNews · Sep 8, 2026

Feds accuse China of ‘systematic’ distillation of U.S. AI models | CyberScoopOpen source ↗

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