The White House has pledged to combat what it describes as “industrial-scale” efforts by Chinese-based entities to copy artificial intelligence models developed by US companies.
Michael J. Kratsios said authorities have evidence that foreign actors are targeting leading American AI firms using proxy accounts and jailbreaking techniques to extract proprietary capabilities.
The administration warned that these campaigns allow competitors to replicate selected performance benchmarks at significantly lower costs while bypassing original development efforts.
“Models developed from surreptitious, unauthorised distillation campaigns like this do not replicate the full performance of the original,”
Kratsios said, adding they still enable cheaper competing products.
The concerns follow allegations by Anthropic that Chinese firms including DeepSeek, Moonshot and MiniMax conducted large-scale distillation attacks involving millions of interactions across tens of thousands of accounts.
Officials said the US will increase coordination with the private sector, share threat intelligence, and explore measures to hold foreign actors accountable as part of a broader defensive strategy.
The issue highlights intensifying global competition in AI development, as pricing disparities between US frontier models and lower-cost alternatives from China continue to widen, raising concerns over security and technological leadership.