Anthropic has accused Chinese technology giant Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. (NYSE:BABA) of extracting capabilities from its Claude AI models.
Anthropic Alleges Large-Scale AI Distillation Campaign Linked To Alibaba
According to a letter reviewed by Reuters on Wednesday, Anthropic told U.S. lawmakers that operators affiliated with Alibaba and its AI research unit, Qwen, conducted a large-scale “distillation” campaign between April 22 and June 5, 2026.
Distillation refers to the practice of training a smaller or less advanced AI model using outputs generated by a more capable system.
Anthropic alleged that the effort relied on nearly 25,000 fraudulent accounts that collectively produced more than 28.8 million exchanges with Claude.
