Anthropic Accuses Chinese AI Firms of Routing User Queries to Claude Models
Quick Look
Anthropic accused Chinese AI companies DeepSeek and Moonshot of covertly routing user requests to its Claude models, presenting the responses as their own, and using the interactions to improve their models, escalating US-China tensions over AI intellectual property and data practices.
AI-generated summary
Why It Matters
Earlier in the week, three US government agencies accused six Chinese companies of stealing US model outputs, likely with Chinese government awareness, which Beijing denied as suppression tactics.
American artificial intelligence (AI) giant Anthropic has accused its Chinese AI rivals DeepSeek and Moonshot on Thursday of covertly routing customer requests to its Claude models, then showing users the responses as if they were from their own models.
The new allegations mark a further escalation in US criticism of China’s AI industry practices. Earlier this week, three US government agencies, including the National Security Agency (NSA) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), claimed that six Chinese companies were engaged in an industrial campaign to steal US model outputs, “likely with Chinese government awareness”.
Beijing on Wednesday rejected those allegations, describing them as actions by Washington to suppress China’s AI industry and threatening retaliatory measures.
While US companies OpenAI and Anthropic have repeatedly accused their Chinese counterparts of “stealing” their outputs to improve their own models in a process known as “distillation”, Anthropic’s latest claims mark the first time it has accused Chinese companies of re-routing users directly to Claude, which would expose Chinese users’ information and activity to the American company.
“[These] findings raise concerns about the misuse of user data by PRC AI labs,” the company said in its 154-page report released on Thursday.
According to the report, Kimi model developer Moonshot secretly showed its users Claude model outputs and passed them off as Kimi’s, then used those exchanges to improve their own models.
What to Watch
AI outlook — possibilities, not facts
US government agencies may launch formal investigations into the alleged routing of user queries by Chinese AI firms.
Likely · Within weeks
China may respond with retaliatory measures against US AI companies operating in China.
Possible · Within months
Open Questions
- What specific evidence does Anthropic have regarding the routing of user queries?
- How did Moonshot and DeepSeek allegedly access and use Claude model outputs?
- What retaliatory measures might China take in response to these allegations?
- Are any regulatory or legal actions being considered by US authorities?
