Anthropic accuses Alibaba of largest distillation attack to extract Claude AI model capabilities

Anthropic says Alibaba illicitly extracted Claude AI model capabilities

June 24 (Reuters) - U.S. AI company Anthropic accused Alibaba (9988.HK), opens new tab, the Chinese technology and e-commerce giant, of illicitly extracting its Claude AI model capabilities in what it said was the largest known distillation attack on the company to date, according to a letter seen by Reuters. Distillation attacks are a way AI companies improperly obtain capabilities to ⁠improve their own models, and involve training a less capable model on the outputs of a stronger one, Anthropic has said in the past. Anthropic said the campaign was conducted between April 22 and June 5, 2026, and generated more than 28.8 million exchanges with Claude through almost 25,000 fraudulent accounts. Anthropic said in the letter ⁠that it is a way for competitors to harvest American AI, and help China reach its most advanced model's capabilities sooner. It said the campaign was conducted by ⁠operators affiliated with Alibaba and Alibaba Qwen, Alibaba's AI lab. Alibaba did not immediately respond to a request for comment. ⁠The letter, dated June 10, was sent to Senators Tim Scott and Elizabeth Warren, the chair ⁠and ranking member, respectively, of the U.S. Senate Banking Committee, ahead of a hearing scheduled on AI. Reporting by Karen Freifeld; additional reporting by David Shepardson Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles., opens new tab

Anthropic accuses Alibaba of campaign to 'brazenly' and 'illicitly' extract AI capabilities

Anthropic sent a letter to the U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs accusing the Chinese tech company Alibaba of "brazenly" and "illicitly" attempting to extract its artificial intelligence capabilities, CNBC confirmed on Wednesday. The letter, which was addressed to Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., and Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., on June 10, said Alibaba carried out "the largest known distillation attack on Anthropic to date." Distillation is an AI training method where a small, less capable model is built using outputs from an existing, stronger model. Anthropic said operators affiliated with Alibaba and its AI lab carried out 28.8 million exchanges with its models using roughly 25,000 fraudulent accounts between April 22 and June 5, according to the letter, which was viewed by CNBC. "We believe combating the threat of illicit distillation requires coordinated action between government and industry, and we will continue working with Congress and the Administration to maintain American AI leadership," an Anthropic spokesperson said in a statement. A representative for Alibaba did not immediately respond to CNBC's request for comment. Bloomberg was first to report the letter.

Anthropic accuses Alibaba of illicitly extracting AI capabilities

US artificial intelligence (AI) giant Anthropic has accused Chinese e-commerce and technology firm Alibaba of "brazenly" and "illicitly" extracting its Claude AI model's capabilities. In a letter seen by the BBC, the San Francisco-based company said operators linked to Alibaba carried out almost 29 million exchanges with Claude using thousands of fraudulent accounts in what it called the largest extraction campaign of its kind. Anthropic urged Congress to penalise the companies behind attacks like this and to ramp up measures to prevent US tech from being stolen. The BBC has contacted Alibaba for comment and requested more details from Anthropic. Anthropic's letter, dated 10 June and addressed to US Senators Tim Scott and Elizabeth Warren, accused New York Stock Exchange-listed Alibaba of carrying out "the largest campaign to illicitly extract Claude's capabilities". According to Anthropic, the campaign was carried out through what are known as "distillation attacks", which extracted answers from a stronger AI model to train a weaker one. Alibaba-linked operators targeted Claude's most valuable capabilities, including its ability to tackle longer and more complex tasks and its approach to decision-making, Anthropic said. These type of attacks are carried out on an "industrial scale" to enable Chinese companies to harvest and repackage US AI capabilities as their own, the company said. The letter also cited other alleged attacks, which Anthropic said posed a threat to the US military. "Distillation attacks turn hundreds of billions of dollars in American investment and [research and development] into a massive subsidy for our geopolitical competitors," said Anthropic. It cited the US Department of Defense's claims that Alibaba and several major firms like car maker BYD and tech company Baidu are tied to the Chinese military. The companies have denied any such allegations, while Alibaba this week sued the US government in a bid to get its name removed from the Pentagon blacklist. US developers have previously accused Chinese competitors of using distillation attacks to train their models to rival American AI technology at a fraction of the cost. OpenAI has also previously accused Chinese groups of employing the same practice. Anthropic is a leading AI developer and, alongside ChatGPT-maker OpenAI, is gearing up for a blockbuster stock market debut that could make it one of the most vaulable companies in the world. But some of Anthropic's more advanced models, such as Mythos, have raised cybersecurity concerns over their ability to target weaknesses in computer systems.

Anthropic accuses Alibaba of running largest distillation campaign against Claude

Anthropic accused Alibaba's Qwen lab of using 25,000 fake accounts for nearly 29 million Claude exchanges, the biggest such campaign yet. Anthropic has accused Alibaba of waging the largest distillation campaign yet against a US AI company, telling senators and White House officials that operators linked to Alibaba's Qwen AI lab used nearly 25,000 fraudulent accounts to extract Claude's capabilities between April and June. The letter, a copy of which was seen by Bloomberg, described nearly 29 million exchanges with Claude targeting software engineering and agentic reasoning, the model's most commercially valuable skills. The accusation marks the first time Anthropic has named a major Chinese technology conglomerate as the source of a distillation attack. Previous allegations in February targeted smaller Chinese AI startups, including DeepSeek, MiniMax, and Moonshot AI, which Anthropic said had collectively generated more than 16 million exchanges through about 24,000 fake accounts. The Alibaba campaign alone exceeded the combined volume of all three earlier efforts. Distillation is the practice of feeding carefully constructed queries to a frontier AI model, collecting its responses, and using those responses to train a cheaper rival system that approximates the original's capabilities. The White House flagged the technique as a national security concern in April, when OSTP Director Michael Kratsios published a memo committing the government to share intelligence with US AI labs about foreign distillation campaigns. Anthropic said in its letter that the Alibaba campaign took place after the Kratsios memo, in defiance of the administration's warnings. Alibaba had no comment on the allegations. An Anthropic spokesperson declined to discuss specifics but emphasised the importance of combating distillation through coordinated action between government and industry. Alibaba's American depositary receipts fell more than three percent on the news, dropping below $100 in afternoon trading on Wednesday. The stock decline adds to a difficult period for the company in Washington, where it faces pressure on multiple fronts. The Pentagon added Alibaba to its Chinese military companies blacklist on 8 June, a designation Anthropic cited in its letter. Alibaba sued the Defense Department this week to win removal from that list, calling the label baseless and arguing it has no military affiliation. The distillation accusation now opens a second front, framing Alibaba not just as a company with alleged military ties but as an active participant in what Anthropic calls the systematic theft of American AI capabilities. In its letter, Anthropic warned that adversarial distillation lets Chinese labs replicate frontier AI at a fraction of the training cost, and that models built this way often lack safety guardrails. The company urged the Trump administration to clarify antitrust guidelines so US labs can share more information about distillation attempts, reiterated its support for export controls on advanced AI chips, and called for penalties against firms that use the technique. Lawmakers are moving in parallel. Senators Bill Hagerty and Andy Kim plan to introduce an amendment to must-pass defence legislation that would blacklist or sanction any Chinese firm found to be improperly accessing US AI model output. A related bipartisan bill in the House, backed by Representatives Bill Huizenga and Sydney Kamlager-Dove, is also being considered, though whether either proposal survives to the final version of the defence bill is uncertain. The timing is sensitive for Anthropic as well. The company, now valued at $965bn after a $65bn Series H round, filed confidentially for an IPO this month and is preparing for a listing that could come as soon as this autumn. US officials have estimated that unauthorised distillation costs Silicon Valley labs billions of dollars, and the threat of cheaper imitation products from China that siphon away customers is a material risk for a company heading to public markets. Anthropic's calls for government support may not find a fully receptive audience, given that the company is embroiled in a separate dispute with the Trump administration over export controls imposed on its Fable 5 and Mythos 5 models less than two weeks ago. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick signed an order blocking foreign nationals from accessing those models, citing security concerns, and Anthropic disabled them to comply. Even after meetings between the company's technical staff and White House officials, little progress has been made to restore service. The result is a company caught between two fronts of its own. Anthropic needs the government to crack down on Chinese labs extracting its technology, but it is simultaneously fighting the same government's decision to restrict its own products. The letter to senators is an attempt to separate the two issues, arguing that protecting US models from distillation and allowing those models to be deployed commercially are complementary rather than contradictory goals. Whether Washington agrees will shape both the regulatory environment for US AI companies and the competitive dynamics of the industry's most consequential rivalry. Anthropic has now named four Chinese labs as distillers of its technology, with the Alibaba accusation by far the largest in scale. If the legislative proposals gain traction, the consequences could extend well beyond Anthropic's models to the broader question of how the US enforces an intellectual property border around AI systems that exist as software, not hardware, and that can be copied over the internet through nothing more than a well-crafted prompt.

Anthropic: Anthropic says Alibaba illicitly extracted Claude AI model capabilities

Anthropic said in the letter that distillation is a way to help accelerate China's ability to reach Anthropic's advanced Mythos Preview capabilities. U.S. AI company Anthropic accused Alibaba, the Chinese technology and e-commerce giant, of illicitly extracting its Claude AI model capabilities in what it said was the largest known attack of its kind on the company, according to a letter seen by Reuters. The strike by Alibaba is described as a "distillation" effort, which Anthropic has said involves training a less capable model on the outputs of a stronger one. Anthropic said the campaign was conducted between April 22 and ⁠June 5, ⁠2026, and generated more than 28.8 million exchanges with Claude through almost 25,000 fraudulent accounts. Anthropic said in the letter that distillation is a way to help accelerate China's ability to reach Anthropic's advanced Mythos Preview capabilities. It said the campaign was conducted by operators affiliated with Alibaba and Alibaba Qwen, Alibaba's AI lab. Alibaba did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The letter, dated June 10, was sent to Senators Tim Scott and Elizabeth Warren, the chair and ranking member, respectively, of the U.S. Senate Banking ⁠Committee, ahead of a scheduled hearing on AI. In April, the White House accused China of stealing U.S. AI labs' intellectual property on an industrial scale. Anthropic said in the letter it was supportive ⁠of the U.S. government's efforts to combat the attacks, including partnering with private sector AI companies through threat-intelligence sharing and other exercises. Anthropic said in a February posting that it had identified a campaign by Chinese AI startup DeepSeek - whose low-cost AI model sent shockwaves through the technology world in January 2025 - and two other Chinese AI labs to illicitly extract capabilities from its Claude AI platform. It said DeepSeek's operation involved over 150,000 exchanges, while Moonshot AI was at a scale of over 3.4 million and MiniMax over 13 million. It also said at the time that the campaigns were growing in "intensity and sophistication" and that addressing the threat would require "rapid, coordinated action among industry players, policymakers and the global AI community." Alibaba was added to the Pentagon's Chinese military ⁠companies list this month, a designation it is challenging. But the Commerce Department has held off placing DeepSeek on a trade blacklist, as Reuters exclusively reported this month, despite it being deemed a national security risk by an interagency governmental committee, as the department tries to avoid escalating tensions with Beijing. Meanwhile, on June 12, two days after Anthropic sent the letter, the Commerce Department imposed controversial restrictions on Anthropic's latest Mythos and Fable AI models because officials feared they could be deployed by military intelligence users in China and other countries of concern. The restrictions resulted in Anthropic disabling access to the models globally. (Reporting by Karen Freifeld; additional reporting by David Shepardson; Editing by Sonali Paul)

Anthropic Writes To Elizabeth Warren, Tim Scott, Accuses Alibaba Of AI Model Theft: 28.8 Million Claude C

Anthropic has accused Chinese technology giant Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. (NYSE:BABA) of extracting capabilities from its Claude AI models. Anthropic Alleges Large-Scale AI Distillation Campaign Linked To Alibaba According to a letter reviewed by Reuters on Wednesday, Anthropic told U.S. lawmakers that operators affiliated with Alibaba and its AI research unit, Qwen, conducted a large-scale "distillation" campaign between April 22 and June 5, 2026. Distillation refers to the practice of training a smaller or less advanced AI model using outputs generated by a more capable system. Anthropic alleged that the effort relied on nearly 25,000 fraudulent accounts that collectively produced more than 28.8 million exchanges with Claude. The company claimed the campaign was aimed at accelerating China's ability to develop systems approaching the capabilities of Anthropic's advanced Mythos Preview models. Alibaba and Anthropic did not immediately respond to Benzinga's request for comments. AI Competition Between US And China Draws Greater Scrutiny The June 10 letter was sent to Senate Banking Committee Chair Tim Scott (R-S.C.) and ranking member Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) ahead of a congressional hearing on artificial intelligence. The allegations come amid heightened tensions over AI competition between the U.S. and China. In April, the White House accused China of systematically targeting intellectual property from leading American AI companies. Anthropic Previously Flagged Similar Activity From Chinese AI Labs The company said it had previously identified alleged capability-extraction campaigns involving Chinese AI firms DeepSeek, Moonshot AI and MiniMax. Anthropic reported that those efforts generated more than 150,000, 3.4 million and 13 million Claude interactions, respectively, making the alleged Alibaba operation significantly larger. The allegations surfaced as U.S. regulators continue to tighten controls on advanced AI technology. Previously, it was reported that the Commerce Department imposed restrictions on Anthropic's latest Mythos and Fable models over concerns they could be accessed by military or intelligence users in China and other countries of concern. Price Action: Alibaba closed Wednesday's session down 2.73% at $99.80 and edged up 0.35% to $100.15 in after-hours trading, according to Benzinga Pro. Benzinga Edge Rankings place Alibaba stock in the 94th percentile for Value, though the shares have posted negative price trends across the short, medium and long-term time frames. Disclaimer: This content was partially produced with the help of AI tools and was reviewed and published by Benzinga editors. Photo Courtesy: Algi Febri Sugita on Shutterstock.com Market News and Data brought to you by Benzinga APIs To add Benzinga News as your preferred source on Google, click here.

Anthropic Asks Washington to Stop Chinese Companies' AI Model Theft | PYMNTS.com

The American AI company said this in a letter that it sent to several U.S. senators and White House officials, Bloomberg reported Wednesday (June 24), citing a copy of the letter. An Anthropic spokesperson declined to discuss the reported letter with Bloomberg but said there is a need for "coordinated action between government and industry" to combat distillation, a process in which developers use results from another AI model to train their own model at a far lower cost, according to the report. Alibaba declined Bloomberg's request for comment, according to the report. The company did not immediately reply to PYMNTS' request for comment. According to the Bloomberg report, Anthropic said in its letter that Alibaba's Qwen AI lab used 25,000 fraudulent accounts to illicitly access its Claude AI model, engage in 28.8 million exchanges with the model, and use the information they garner to develop rival chatbots through adversarial distillation. The company said that AI models developed through this process lack the guardrails that Anthropic puts on its own models, and that distillation poses a threat to national security because it could enable China to reduce America's lead in AI, per the report. Anthropic also asked the senators and official to whom it sent the letter to clarify antitrust guidelines to allow U.S. companies to share information about distillation, to support export controls on advanced AI chips, and to penalize firms that use distillation, according to the report. Anthropic said in a February blog post that Chinese AI labs DeepSeek, MiniMax and Moonshot AI had used distillation and the outputs of Claude to train their own models. "These campaigns are growing in intensity and sophistication," Anthropic said in the post. "The window to act is narrow, and the threat extends beyond any single company or region. Addressing it will require rapid, coordinated action among industry players, policymakers and the global AI community." Google Threat Intelligence Group said in a Feb. 12 blog post that it had seen a growing incidence of distillation attacks or "model extraction attacks" and that a coding model, for example, "could be targeted by an adversary wishing to replicate capabilities in an environment without guardrails."