overview
- The US State Department has launched a global campaign highlighting alleged intellectual property theft by Chinese companies, including AI startup DeepSeek.
- The campaign aims to warn of the risks associated with the use of AI models derived from indigenous U.S. technology and encourage government outreach.
- DeepSeek recently introduced a new AI model designed for Huawei’s chip technology, highlighting the growth of China’s AI capabilities.
- The Chinese embassy in Washington dismissed the US accusations as baseless and insisted that China values intellectual property rights.
The US State Department has ordered a global campaign to draw attention to widespread attempts by Chinese companies, including AI startup DeepSeek, to steal intellectual property from US AI labs.
“Warns of the risks of utilizing AI models extracted from the United States’ own AI models and lays the foundation for potential follow-up and assistance by the U.S. government.” According to the cable.
Distillation is the process of using output from large AI models to train smaller AI models to reduce the cost of training powerful new AI tools. China’s growing independence in this field was highlighted on Friday when Chinese startup DeepSeek, which wowed the world with its low-cost AI model last year, gave a sneak preview of its long-awaited new model tailored to Huawei’s chip technology.
Chinese AI companies Moonshot AI and MiniMax were also mentioned in the telegram. The Chinese embassy in Washington said the Chinese government “takes the protection of intellectual property rights very seriously” and called similar accusations from the White House this week “baseless allegations.”
The cable instructs diplomatic officials to discuss “concerns regarding the extraction and distillation of U.S. AI models by adversaries” with their foreign counterparts. It was sent to diplomats and consulates around the world on Friday.
According to the document, “another democracy request and message was sent to the Chinese government calling for negotiations with China.” The unreported cables indicate the Trump administration is paying attention to concerns about China’s distillation of American AI models. “Thanks to AI models developed from covert and unauthorized distillation campaigns, foreign adversaries are able to release a small number of products that perform equally well on specific benchmarks.”
Olumido Adesina
financial market writer
Olumide Adesina is a French-born Nigerian financial writer. He has over 15 years of working experience in investment trading and tracking financial markets.
