Trump under pressure from all sides over Chinese AI surge
US President Donald Trump delivers remarks on the Ratepayer Protection Pledge during a roundtable at the Environmental Protection Agency headquarters on Jul 23, 2026, in Washington, DC. (File photo: Getty Images via AFP)
Read a summary of this article on FAST.
Get bite-sized news via a new
cards interface. Give it a try.
Click here to return to FAST
Tap here to return to FAST
FAST
WASHINGTON: United States President Donald Trump is under pressure to respond to the increasing success of Chinese artificial intelligence models that many companies prefer to the more powerful, but pricier, US versions from Anthropic or OpenAI.
The issue came to the fore this week with the release of Kimi K3 by Moonshot, which White House officials say was developed by stealing the capabilities of Anthropic’s most powerful model through a process called distillation.
The method is widely used across the industry, but US officials say Chinese firms have deployed it at scale to illicitly copy proprietary American systems.
Michael Kratsios, director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, on Wednesday (Jul 22) decried the practice and suggested that Moonshot had also circumvented US export curbs on powerful AI chips from Nvidia to build its products.
Guess Word
Crack the word, one row at a time
Buzzword
Create words using the given letters
Mini Sudoku
Tiny puzzle, mighty brain teaser
Mini Crossword
Small grid, big challenge
Word Search
Spot as many words as you can
The Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security is formally investigating Chinese firms like Moonshot over their use of these chips, a spokesperson told The Information.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent this week threatened sanctions against China, with reports the US is also weighing a ban or curbs on foreign-made open-source models that are often built through distillation.
Earlier this year, Anthropic sent letters to US lawmakers warning about the practice, formally accusing Chinese firms Moonshot, DeepSeek and MiniMax of industrial-scale distillation of its Claude models.
Illicit distillation “is IP theft and industrial espionage” and “a national challenge that creates serious national security risks for the US and democratic allies”, Sarah Heck, Anthropic’s head of public policy, said on X.
Open-source, or open-weight, models cost less and use source code that programmers can customise – something that is especially appreciated by startups and companies that do not want to be beholden to models from Anthropic, OpenAI or Google that cost money and must be taken as is.
Even if just floated as an idea, the startup community has asked the White House to forgo any plan to block foreign-made open-source models, saying it would just unfairly reward the US AI giants, thwart competition and stick entrepreneurs with high prices for AI.
“Lobbyists are urging Washington to treat open-model AI as a security threat. In fact, it is something more familiar: proper competition that should be welcomed,” wrote Bill Gurley, a former venture capitalist, in The Washington Post.
On Wednesday, a group of 179 startups wrote a letter to the Trump administration urging it to think twice about any outright ban or strict curbs on foreign-made models.
“Denying American startups access to models available abroad would stifle competition, entrench incumbents, and function as a tax on intelligence,” the letter from the Little Tech Association said.
“PANIC NEEDS TO STOP”
Some critics of limiting open-source models believe that OpenAI and Anthropic are trying to save themselves by eliminating the emergence of this rival technology.
The two AI giants are facing huge financial pressure ahead of expected IPOs in the coming months, with Wall Street taking a closer look than ever at their business performance before their expected public listings.
“The Kimi panic needs to stop,” said David Sacks, the White House’s former chief on AI policy, who still has the president’s ear.
“President Trump’s light-touch regulatory approach is working … As long as we don’t sabotage ourselves with unnecessary rules, the US will continue to win,” he said on X.
Weighing in on the debate firmly for the Chinese models was Jensen Huang, the CEO of Nvidia, whose company makes AI’s core infrastructure, whether for open-source companies or US-made proprietary ones.
American companies should “absolutely” be allowed to use Chinese AI models, he said to Axios.
“These Chinese models are excellent. Open-source models that are excellent should be used,” he said.
Source: AFP/rl
Sign up for our newsletters
Get the CNA app
Stay updated with notifications for breaking news and our best stories
Get WhatsApp alerts
Join our channel for the top reads for the day on your preferred chat app
Get bite-sized news via a new
cards interface. Give it a try.
Click here to return to FAST
Tap here to return to FAST
FAST
About The Author
