Beijing accuses US firms of training AI models on Chinese examples

Beijing accused US artificial intelligence companies on Monday of using Chinese examples to train their models, days after Washington threatened sanctions on Chinese firms for allegedly stealing American technology. The Hong Kong Productivity Council’s AI exhibition in Kowloon Tong on May 21, 2026. Photo: Kyle Lam/HKFP. “It is understood that many American artificial intelligence enterprises have distilled Chinese models during their research, development and training processes,” the Chinese commerce ministry said in a statement. Distillation is a process in which an AI model is trained to mimic the output of a larger, more capable one. The method is widely used across the industry, but US officials say Chinese firms have deployed it at scale to illicitly copy proprietary American systems. The Chinese ministry said the US accusations “lack factual basis and legal grounds, adopt double standards in practice, and constitute typical acts of artificial intelligence hegemonism”. “China will take all necessary measures to firmly safeguard its legitimate and lawful rights and interests,” it added. Last week, a senior White House official accused Chinese startup Moonshot AI of covertly copying Anthropic’s most advanced model to build its Kimi K3. The White House. Photo: White House, via Flickr. The latest Moonshot model stunned the US tech industry upon its release, setting off a fresh discussion over the AI rivalry with China. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent last week threatened sanctions against China, amid reports the US is also weighing a ban or curbs on foreign-made open source models that are often built through distillation. Safeguard press freedom; keep HKFP free for all readers by supporting our team Support HKFP | Policies & Ethics | Error/typo? | Contact | Newsletter | Transparency & Annual Report | Apps Make a one-off donation. Dateline:Beijing, China Type of Story: News ServiceProduced externally by an organization we trust to adhere to high journalistic standards. Agence France-Press (AFP) is "a leading global news agency providing fast, comprehensive and verified coverage of the events shaping our world and of the issues affecting our daily lives." HKFP relies on AFP, and its international bureaus, to cover topics we cannot. Read their Ethics Code here More by AFP