The AI theft technique that has Washington alarmed The US-China gap in top AI model performance has "effectively closed", according to a 2025 report from Stanford University's Institute for Human-Centred AI, and Washington is now asking how much of that progress was earned versus extracted. In a memo released on Thursday, President Trump’s Chief Science and Technology Adviser Michael Kratsios blamed foreign actors principally based in China for launching campaigns designed to extract capabilities of top American AI systems. Distillation is accomplished by interrogating the targeted system extensively and then training an alternate model to imitate its functions. Advertisement Kratsios…