Allegations have surfaced against Alibaba for engaging in a large-scale campaign to extract capabilities from Anthropic's Claude artificial intelligence models. The accusations claim that operators associated with Alibaba utilized thousands of fraudulent accounts to gain unauthorized access to Anthropic's systems. This incident comes amidst global regulatory efforts to control advanced technologies, especially in the context of escalating geopolitical tensions.

In a letter addressed to the U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs on June 10, Anthropic alleged that Alibaba executed what the company described as "the largest known distillation attack on Anthropic to date." According to reports by CNBC, the communication was directed to committee chairman Senator Tim Scott and ranking member Senator Elizabeth Warren. Anthropic further detailed that operators linked to Alibaba and its AI research division conducted around 28.8 million interactions with its models over a period from April 22 to June 5, utilizing approximately 25,000 fake accounts to carry out the distillation process.

Anthropic emphasized the importance of collaborative efforts between the government and industry to combat such illicit activities. The company expressed its commitment to working with policymakers to safeguard American leadership in the field of artificial intelligence. This development is not an isolated incident, as Anthropic had previously raised concerns about similar distillation campaigns involving other Chinese AI developers like DeepSeek, Moonshot AI, and MiniMax. The company stressed the need for enhanced cooperation among technology firms, cloud service providers, and policymakers to address the growing sophistication of such efforts.