Bangkok: China hit back on Wednesday against US claims that Chinese artificial intelligence developers are engaged in 'aggressive, malicious' industrial-scale efforts to extract capabilities from frontier American AI systems.
The FBI, National Security Agency and Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency issued a joint cybersecurity advisory on Tuesday alleging that Chinese AI developers had extracted, or "distilled", capabilities from US frontier AI models including Anthropic's Claude, OpenAI's GPT, Google's Gemini and SpaceXAI's Grok 'since at least late 2024'.
The advisory named China's DeepSeek, Alibaba, Moonshot AI and Z.ai and said the activities were carried out 'likely with Chinese government awareness'.
In Beijing, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs urged the US to "refrain from making unfounded accusations or smears" against China. It added that China and the US are both major AI powers and should strengthen cooperation.
"China's AI development is the result of high-level technological self-reliance and strength," ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said at a regular press conference.
"We maintain that all parties should strengthen cooperation to promote AI development that is open, inclusive, universally beneficial and oriented toward the common good," she said.
AI governance is expected to feature in planned talks later this month between US President Donald Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping.
The US advisory said Chinese AI companies "route distillation requests through multiple pathways to gain unauthorised access, consequently violating US AI companies' terms of use".
"China-based AI companies are engaging in aggressive, malicious, and targeted distillation activities at an industrial scale that extract restricted proprietary functionalities and capabilities of US frontier AI models," it said.
The agencies also accused Chinese AI companies of achieving cost savings for their distillation campaigns 'through bulk procurement of the US AI companies' premium subscriptions shared across teams of developers'.
Chinese AI models such as Moonshot's Kimi K3 have been making inroads in the US and elsewhere. They are seen by some as more efficient and affordable alternatives to American frontier models, even as US-led restrictions have limited China's access to some of the world's most advanced technologies.
The joint advisory contains more details than earlier US accusations against Chinese AI developers. Anthropic and OpenAI have also made similar allegations. Beijing has maintained that the US claims are groundless.
On Tuesday, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told an event at Southern Methodist University's Cox School of Business in Dallas, Texas, that China could 'never get ahead' of the US in AI.
"The Chinese distil our models, and they can never get ahead of us," Bessent said.
DeepSeek, Alibaba, Moonshot AI and Z.ai did not immediately respond to a request for comment.