The race for artificial intelligence has entered a new phase, raising concerns in the United States over the rapid technological advancement of Chinese companies. Major American firms in the sector claim that some Chinese competitors are using copying techniques to reduce the technology gap and develop increasingly competitive models. According to Silicon Valley leaders, this situation could challenge the advantage built by the U.S. over the past years, with potential economic and strategic implications in areas such as cybersecurity, pharmaceutical research, and defense. Tensions between the U.S. and China over AI have intensified, particularly around the technique known as 'distillation,' which allows training a new AI model by observing the behavior of a more advanced one. This method, originally developed at Google, has become a point of contention. Anthropic accused Alibaba of using thousands of unauthorized accounts to collect data from their systems for training competing models. While Alibaba remains silent, Anthropic claims this practice is widespread and enables Chinese companies to quickly close the technological gap. Experts estimate the technological distance between U
Bias read (Center): The article presents both perspectives—concerns raised by U.S. companies and the lack of consensus on whether distillation is illegal—without overtly favoring one side. It includes quotes from U.S. firms and mentions the lack of clear legal frameworks, suggesting balanced reporting.
