Extraction and distillation: US State Department upgrades AI theft
accusations to target Chinas Deepseek, Moonshot AI and MiniMax

Date:
Mon, 27 Apr 2026 13:13:38 +0000

Description:
The State Department says Chinese AI companies are 'distilling' US AI models.

FULL STORY ======================================================================Copy link Facebook X Whatsapp Reddit Pinterest Flipboard Threads Email Share this article 0 Join the conversation Follow us Add us as a preferred source on Google Newsletter Tech Radar Pro Are you a pro? Subscribe to our newsletter Sign up to the TechRadar Pro newsletter to get all the top news, opinion, features and guidance your business needs to succeed! Become a Member in Seconds Unlock instant access to exclusive member features. Contact me with news and offers from other Future brands Receive email from us on behalf of our trusted partners or sponsors By submitting your information you agree to the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy and are aged 16 or over. You are
now subscribed Your newsletter sign-up was successful Join the club Get full access to premium articles, exclusive features and a growing list of member rewards. Explore An account already exists for this email address, please log in. Subscribe to our newsletter US State Department says China is stealing US intellectual property US AI models are being 'distilled' to produce cheaper models for China Deepseek, Moonshot AI and MiniMax accused of alleged theft The US State Department has accused Chinese AI companies of stealing the intellectual property of US artificial intelligence models.

The White House recently accused China of systematically distilling and extracting US AI models , but is now directly accusing Chinese companies. A new cable issued a global warning and directly accused Chinese AI companies such as Deepseek, Moonshot AI and MiniMax of distilling US AI models to produce their own models. Article continues below You may like 'We will be taking action to protect American innovation': White House accuses China of 'systematically' extracting American AI technologies 'I do think we always have to think about, maybe even worry a little bit about, Chinese subsidies': Microsoft President says US firms should get ready for more competition from China Shocking emissions stats revealed for 11 planned AI data centers in the US Stealing intellectual property The State Department says the cable was issued to warn of the risks of utilizing AI models distilled from U.S. proprietary AI models, and lay the groundwork for potential follow-up and outreach by the U.S. government.

AI models require large amounts of high quality data to train, but it is possible to distill a smaller model from a large one. The smaller model is trained using the outputs of the larger model, significantly reducing the
cost of its production.

The Chinese Embassy in Washington previously denied the accusations, stating that Beijing attaches great importance to the protection of intellectual property rights.

Chinese companies have released a number of powerful, low-cost AI models that have disrupted the AI market - most notably the release of Deepseeks DeepSeek-V3 and DeepSeek-R1 models that rivalled their ChatGPT counterparts but with a significant reduction in cost and computing power. Are you a pro? Subscribe to our newsletter Sign up to the TechRadar Pro newsletter to get
all the top news, opinion, features and guidance your business needs to succeed! Contact me with news and offers from other Future brands Receive email from us on behalf of our trusted partners or sponsors By submitting
your information you agree to the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy and are aged 16 or over.

Chinese AI companies Moonshot AI and MiniMax were also mentioned in the
cable, which requests diplomatic staff around the world raise concerns over adversaries extraction and distillation of U.S. A.I. models, with their foreign counterparts.

US President Donald Trump is due to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping in May 2026, and the latest accusations will likely raise tensions between the two leaders. Follow TechRadar on Google News and add us as a preferred source to get our expert news, reviews, and opinion in your feeds.



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Link to news story: https://www.techradar.com/pro/extraction-and-distillation-us-state-department- upgrades-ai-theft-accusations-to-target-chinas-deepseek-moonshot-ai-and-minima x


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