Anthropic Accuses Alibaba of Largest AI Distillation Attack: 28.8M Fraudulent ExchangesAnthropic Accuses Alibaba of Massive AI Model Extraction: Largest Distillation Attack to Date
WASHINGTON — Anthropic sent a letter to U.S. officials accusing Alibaba of “brazenly” and “illicitly” attempting to extract its AI capabilities. The company claims Alibaba orchestrated what it describes as the largest coordinated distillation attack in AI history.
Anthropic said operators affiliated with Alibaba and its AI lab carried out 28.8 million exchanges with its models using roughly 25,000 fraudulent accounts between April 22 and June 5.
The staggering numbers reveal the sophistication of the operation:
Anthropic said that a campaign by operators linked to Alibaba’s Qwen AI lab targeted Claude’s most prized capabilities, including software engineering and agentic reasoning.
The operation specifically targeted Claude’s most advanced and commercially valuable capabilities, including software engineering and agentic reasoning, the cornerstones of Anthropic’s cutting-edge Mythos Preview model.
This wasn’t random testing. Alibaba’s team systematically targeted Anthropic’s most valuable intellectual property.
Anthropic further cautioned that AI systems built through this adversarial distillation method often lack safety guardrails, posing broader security and safety risks beyond intellectual property theft.
The implications extend far beyond corporate espionage. Stolen AI capabilities without proper safety guardrails could pose risks to national security.
This letter comes two months after Anthropic had already revealed a separate scheme involving DeepSeek the Chinese AI startup whose low-cost model rattled global tech markets in early 2025 along with two other Chinese AI laboratories attempting to illicitly access Claude’s platform.
Previous attacks from Chinese AI firms:
Alibaba’s campaign dwarfs all previous known distillation attacks combined.
Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. shares slid to a 16-month low in Hong Kong after Anthropic PBC accused the Chinese technology giant of “illicitly” accessing its artificial intelligence model. The company’s stock tumbled as much as 4.9%.
Other Chinese AI companies also suffered losses:
The market immediately punished Alibaba and signaled investor concern about Chinese AI sector compliance.
Anthropic wrote that in proceeding with its distillation attacks, Alibaba “ignored the Trump Administration’s warnings”.
The timing adds pressure on U.S. policymakers. The letter lands two months after the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy issued a memorandum that pledged to help AI companies detect and coordinate against industrial-scale distillation.
Anthropic spokesperson emphasized the need for coordinated defense: “We believe combating the threat of illicit distillation requires coordinated action between government and industry, and we will continue working with Congress and the Administration to maintain American AI leadership.”
The latest accusations also come as Alibaba faces additional regulatory pressure in the United States. The company was added this month to the Pentagon’s list of Chinese military companies, a designation that Alibaba is challenging.
Alibaba has not responded to the new distillation allegations. The company continues to deny similar accusations and maintains all its research operations comply with applicable regulations.
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