TEHRAN, June 25 — A new front has opened in the long-running technological rivalry between the United States and China, this time centred on the theft of artificial intelligence capabilities. US firm Anthropic has formally accused Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba of orchestrating what it describes as a massive, coordinated campaign to extract the core functions of its Claude AI model. The accusation comes in a letter dated June 10, sent by the San Francisco-based AI company to US Senators Tim Scott and Elizabeth Warren.
In it, Anthropic alleges that operators linked to Alibaba conducted nearly 29 million interactions with Claude using thousands of fraudulent accounts. The company called this effort the largest extraction campaign of its kind, and urged Congress to impose penalties on organisations involved in such activities.
According to state and international reports citing the BBC, Anthropic claims the operation relied on so-called “distillation attacks.” This is a technique where responses generated by a more advanced AI model are collected and used to train a less capable model. The account indicates the operators focused on Claude’s most valuable functions, including its ability to handle lengthy and complex tasks, as well as its methods of reasoning and decision-making.
The letter further argued that such attacks are being conducted on an “industrial scale,” enabling Chinese companies to harvest advanced US AI technologies and repackage those capabilities into their own systems. Anthropic also cited other alleged attacks, which it said posed a threat to the US military.
For observers of the region, the accusation fits a familiar pattern. The technology relationship between Washington and Beijing has long been marked by mutual suspicion, with each side accusing the other of intellectual property theft and industrial espionage. The AI sector, where billions of dollars in American investment and research are at stake, has become a particular flashpoint.
Anthropic’s letter described distillation attacks as turning “hundreds of billions of dollars in American investment and [research and development] into a massive subsidy for our geopolitical competitors.” The company has called on Congress to strengthen safeguards aimed at preventing the theft of US-developed technology. Alibaba has not yet issued a public response to the specific allegations contained in the letter.
The coming weeks will show whether the US Congress takes up Anthropic’s call for penalties, and how Beijing might respond to what it will likely view as another round of American accusations in the intensifying AI contest.
{“@context”: “https://schema.org”, “@type”: “NewsArticle”, “headline”: “Anthropic accuses Alibaba of massive AI model extraction campaign”, “description”: “TEHRAN, June 25 — A new front has opened in the long-running technological rivalry between the United States and China, this time centred on the…”, “datePublished”: “2026-06-25 05:48:00T09:30:00+00:00”, “author”: {“@type”: “Person”, “name”: “Reza Karimi”}, “publisher”: {“@type”: “Organization”, “name”: “InfoPulse Today”, “url”: “https://newsfeed.infopulsetoday.com/”}}
