China's commerce ministry on Sunday condemned the US investigation into Chinese artificial intelligence firms as "AI hegemonism" and threatened countermeasures, urging Washington to abandon what it called hegemonic thinking and end sanctions threats against Chinese companies.
The ministry rebutted claims of technology theft, arguing that Chinese AI models have been released nearly simultaneously with leading US systems and that some already hold a competitive edge. It also noted that nearly 200 American startups have urged their government not to restrict access to Chinese open-source models. The response follows US officials alleging Chinese firms stole technology through industrial-scale model distillation.
US technology adviser Michael Kratsios suspected startup Moonshot AI distilled models from Anthropic, which recorded over 3.4 million interactions from accounts linked to Moonshot. Moonshot denies its Kimi K3 model owes its capabilities to distillation.