US accuses Chinese AI firms of cloning American AI models via distillation

U.S. federal agencies (FBI, NSA, and CISA) accuse six leading Chinese AI developers—DeepSeek, Moonshot AI, Alibaba, MiniMax, StepFun, and Z.AI—of systematically distilling and copying cutting‑edge American AI models (e.g., Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini, Grok) to build their own systems since 2024, with the report saying distillation is the core driver of their AI development and noting it was likely done with Chinese government awareness; it accompanies recommendations for verifying users and safeguarding U.S. tech, highlighting ongoing AI competition between the U.S. and China.