U.S. agencies say top Chinese AI companies systematically copied American models

China said it’s willing to hold talks with the US on artificial intelligence, but vowed to retaliate if Washington takes actions against Chinese companies over accusations of systematic technology theft.

The response comes after three US agencies accused Chinese AI companies of exploiting American AI models.

The Chinese firms have used a technique known as distillation since at least 2024 to access and draw information from US AI models “at an industrial scale” to train their own systems, according to a joint statement

According to a joint statement issued by U.S. intelligence and law enforcement officials, Chinese developers appropriated intellectual property from American AI laboratories

The Chinese companies copied U.S. AI labs' intellectual property through a technique known ‌as distillation, according ⁠to ⁠a statement from U.S. law enforcement and intelligence officials. Distillation is the process of training ​smaller AI models using output from larger, more…

In its most detailed accusation yet, the U.S. government has named six Chinese AI companies that it says copied American companies for their AI secrets.