AI Race Heats Up: U.S. Accuses China of Copying Top Models Amid Safety Fears

The U.S. government has accused China of “industrial-scale distillation,” arguing Chinese AI developers are training by copying capabilities from some of America’s most advanced models, a claim backed by an FBI-NSA-CISA report on aggressive distillation. Beijing denies the charge, saying distillation is common and accusing the U.S. of trying to monopolize the AI industry. Experts say the clash signals a broader frontier-AI competition: U.S. efforts to control inputs like chips and data, versus Chinese developers who can learn from U.S. systems and release capable open-weight models that could spread globally, all amid ongoing concerns about safety and governance of advanced AI.