In a sharp escalation of tech tensions, the Trump administration has accused Chinese actors of running industrial-scale 'distillation campaigns' to copy American frontier AI models. According to Trump's science advisor, Chinese operatives systematically query leading U.S. AI systems, capture their outputs, and use that data to train copycat models.
The White House is reportedly weighing major sanctions in response, and the brewing controversy could overshadow the planned Trump-Xi summit. China has dismissed the allegations as slander, insisting its AI development is independent and legitimate.
This development marks a new, openly political phase in the frontier AI race, as the U.S. moves to protect its technological edge from what it sees as state-backed intellectual property theft.