The response came after three US government agencies accused Chinese AI companies of abusing US AI models.
Published September 9, 2026
China has issued a strong response to US claims that China’s top artificial intelligence company was involved in an “industrial scale” theft of US artificial intelligence models.
Wednesday’s action came after three US federal agencies, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), National Security Agency (NSA), and Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), accused Chinese AI companies of exploiting US AI models to benefit their own systems.
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Tuesday’s joint advisory said Chinese companies such as DeepSeek, Alibaba and Moonshot AI have distilled “billions of tokens” from the US model since “at least late 2024,” likely due to the “perception” of the Chinese government.
A token is the smallest unit of text that an AI model reads or produces.
On Wednesday, China’s Ministry of Commerce dismissed the allegations and accused the United States of seeking a “monopoly in the AI industry.”
“If the United States suppresses Chinese AI companies under the pretext of targeting distillation, China will take firm countermeasures,” the ministry said in a statement to The Associated Press.
Distillation is a way to train a lower-level AI model with a more advanced AI model. The department said this practice is common in the AI industry, including U.S. AI companies. However, US companies claim that the amount being carried out by Chinese AI models amounts to theft.
“The sheer scale of these campaigns and their sophistication indicate that distillation is not an addendum to these companies’ AI model development, but a critical core thereof,” the US advisory claimed.
The Associated Press reported that China’s Foreign Ministry called on the United States to “refrain from baseless accusations and slander” against China.
“China’s AI development is the result of its high degree of technological independence and strength,” ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said at a press conference. “We advocate that all stakeholders should increase cooperation to foster AI development that is open, inclusive, universally beneficial, and oriented to the common good.”
Xi’s visit
The U.S. recommendations come just weeks before Chinese President Xi Jinping visits the United States, where President Donald Trump is expected to host a summit on a variety of topics, including AI.
According to Reuters, in an unusual move, Xi may be accompanied by a number of senior Chinese officials on his visit to the United States. It is not clear which executives will be part of the delegation, but past meetings between the two countries may indicate that AI leaders may be among them.
During his 2015 visit to the United States, Mr. Xi took Alibaba founder Jack Ma with him. When President Trump called on President Xi during a trip to Beijing in May, more than a dozen American executives, including Tesla CEO Elon Musk, were present.
Under the Trump administration, the U.S. government has taken a hard line against China’s efforts to advance its AI models. China is aggressively investing heavily in artificial intelligence and robotics, plowing nearly $300 billion into what the government sees as the country’s next economic engine.
U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent spoke in Dallas on Tuesday, telling the audience that China “will never surpass the United States” in AI.
“The Chinese will distill our model, but they will never be able to get ahead of us,” Bessent said.
The Chinese companies named in the U.S. advisory did not immediately respond to Al Jazeera’s requests for comment.
