Skip to content
Tech News
← Back to articles

Anthropic says Alibaba, Moonshot, DeepSeek covertly used Claude to train rival AI models

read original get The Coming Wave by Mustafa Suleyman (book) → more articles
GoKawiil Brief

Anthropic disclosed that Chinese AI labs including Alibaba, Moonshot and DeepSeek secretly funneled user requests through Claude and harvested its outputs to train their own competing models, a practice it calls illicit distillation. Alibaba's campaign alone involved more than 151 million exchanges between May and July, peaking near 3 million a day from over 3,500 fraudulent accounts, while Moonshot silently rerouted Kimi customer queries to Claude and presented the answers as its own.

Why It Matters

GoKawiil's interpretation of the reporting above, not reported fact.

The report highlights how AI labs can quietly exploit rivals' models to shortcut expensive training while exposing sensitive user, corporate and government data to unauthorized third parties. It also intensifies scrutiny of Chinese AI firms' data practices and raises questions about enforcement of API terms of service as distillation becomes a common shortcut to competitive AI capability.

Key Takeaways
Worth a Look

The Coming Wave by Mustafa Suleyman (book) — If stories about rival AI labs quietly copying each other's models make you want the bigger picture, this book digs into how fast frontier AI is spreading and why containing it is so hard. It's a readable primer on the competitive and geopolitical pressures behind headlines like Anthropic's distillation report.

See The Coming Wave by Mustafa Suleyman (book) on Amazon → Affiliate link — we may earn a commission on purchases, at no extra cost to you. Product picked by AI based on this article; it is not a tested recommendation.

Source: cnbc.com — Jenny Lee, 2026-09-11

Published there as: “Chinese AI labs secretly used millions of Claude exchanges to train their models, Anthropic says”

Read the original report → The summary and analysis above are GoKawiil's own, written from reporting by the source above. Facts and quotes belong to the original publisher.