Anthropic Accuses Alibaba of Largest AI Model Extraction Campaign as US-China AI Race Heats Up

•  Anthropic accuses Alibaba of running its largest AI model extraction campaign targeting Claude AI
• The allegations add a new front to the US-China AI race as Washington tightens AI safeguards
• Anthropic says nearly 28.8 million Claude AI interactions were linked to Alibaba-affiliated operators

The competition between US and Chinese AI companies is increasingly moving beyond new model launches and into questions of intellectual property. Anthropic and Alibaba are now at the center of this debate. This comes after the US startup accused the Chinese tech giant of conducting what it described as the largest AI model extraction campaign it has encountered. The allegations come at a time when the broader US-China AI race is already intensifying. Both governments and companies are tightening their focus on advanced AI technologies.

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Anthropic Says Alibaba Orchestrated Massive AI Model Extraction Campaign

According to a letter reviewed by Reuters, Anthropic claims operators linked to Alibaba and its AI division, Qwen, created nearly 25,000 fraudulent accounts between April 22 and June 5. They generated more than 28.8 million interactions with Claude AI. The company says the activity was designed to perform AI model extraction. This is also known as distillation, a process where a smaller model is trained using outputs from a more advanced one.

Anthropic argues that Alibaba’s campaign targeted Claude’s most advanced coding, reasoning, and autonomous agent capabilities. In the letter sent to Senate Banking Committee leaders Tim Scott and Elizabeth Warren, the company urged lawmakers to strengthen AI export controls, improve threat intelligence sharing with AI firms, and introduce tougher protections for AI intellectual property.

The allegations follow Anthropic’s earlier claims that Chinese AI companies, including DeepSeek, Moonshot AI, and MiniMax, had attempted similar techniques on a smaller scale. Now, Anthropic has its eyes on Alibaba.

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China AI Competition Continues to Expand

Amidst this Anthropic-Alibaba dispute comes as China’s AI development continues to accelerate across multiple fronts. Earlier this week, China’s LineShine supercomputer reclaimed the top position in the latest Top500 rankings. This marked the country’s first No. 1 system since 2017. The milestone highlights that competition now extends beyond foundation models into computing infrastructure and high-performance computing.

Industry analysts increasingly see these developments as part of the same trend. While companies compete to build stronger AI models, governments are also racing to secure the hardware, talent, and intellectual property needed to maintain an advantage.

Anthropic’s concerns also point to US policy discussions. In April, the White House accused China of acquiring American AI intellectual property on an industrial scale. Days after Anthropic’s June 10 letter, the US Commerce Department imposed new restrictions on the company’s latest AI models. This was over concerns that they could be accessed by military users in countries of concern.

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