{
  "id": 13123765,
  "title": "Anthropic claims Chinese AI firms secretly use Claude. Is it true?",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/10/09/anthropic-claims-chinese-ai-firms-secretly-use-claude-is-it-true",
  "topic": "ai",
  "section": "AI",
  "published": "2026-10-09T13:30:07.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "South China Morning Post",
    "slug": "south-china-morning-post",
    "url": "https://www.scmp.com/tech/tech-war/article/3370317/anthropic-claims-chinese-ai-firms-secretly-use-claude-it-true"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": "Chinese AI companies may have secretly utilized U.S.-based AI models like Anthropic's Claude to reduce costs, according to allegations from American AI lab Anthropic. The National Security Agency, FBI, and Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency recently warned that Chinese firms were engaging in large-scale \"distillation\" – a technique where the outputs from a more capable \"teacher\" model are used to improve another model. Anthropic claimed that Chinese developers used fraudulent accounts and proxy networks to extract reasoning data from Claude, sometimes using the U.S. model as a concealed back end for their own applications. While model distillation is common in the AI industry, Anthropic alleged that Chinese labs bypassed usage restrictions through fraudulent accounts and 5,380 fraudulent accounts located primarily in Singapore and Japan. Some Chinese companies reportedly used Claude as a hidden back end, with users unknowingly having their queries processed by the U.S. firm's servers. Industry experts are divided on the credibility and attribution of Anthropic's findings, with some considering them credible and others arguing that attributing direct blame to Chinese AI companies is not always straightforward. Chinese regulators reportedly investigated domestic AI labs following Anthropic's report, focusing on DeepSeek and Moonshot, due to concerns over data security and the potential for sensitive information to be shared with American AI model providers.",
  "summary": "Did Chinese AI companies secretly tap US models to close the technology gap? That is the central question hanging over China’s tech sector following a wave of allegations from Washington and American AI lab Anthropic. According to a joint advisory by the National Security Agency, FBI, and Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency last month, Chinese AI developers have been systematically…",
  "key_points": [],
  "editors_take": null,
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 5,
    "also_reported_by": [
      {
        "outlet": "The Register",
        "title": "Microsoft and Anthropic play invoice tennis with startup's $17,600 Claude bill",
        "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/10/09/microsoft-and-anthropic-play-invoice-tennis-with-startups-17-600",
        "published": "2026-10-09T09:46:00.000Z"
      },
      {
        "outlet": "TechSpot",
        "title": "Being mean to AI could get you banned as Anthropic introduces new rules against abusing Claude",
        "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/10/09/being-mean-to-ai-could-get-you-banned-as-anthropic-introduces-new",
        "published": "2026-10-09T10:17:00.000Z"
      },
      {
        "outlet": "Business Insider",
        "title": "Anthropic wants users to be nicer to Claude. Here's what smart people are saying about its move to ban abusive behavior.",
        "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/10/09/anthropic-wants-users-to-be-nicer-to-claude-heres-what-smart-people",
        "published": "2026-10-09T11:58:11.000Z"
      },
      {
        "outlet": "SCMP Tech",
        "title": "Anthropic claims Chinese AI firms secretly use Claude. Is it true?",
        "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/10/09/anthropic-claims-chinese-ai-firms-secretly-use-claude-is-it-true-13125834",
        "published": "2026-10-09T13:30:07.000Z"
      }
    ]
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}