Anthropic Accuses Alibaba of AI Distillation Attack

U.S. AI firm Anthropic has accused China's Alibaba of a major distillation attack to illicitly use its Claude AI model. The alleged attack, between April and June 2026, involved 25,000 fraudulent accounts and generated 28.8 million exchanges. Alibaba has yet to respond to the claims.

Anthropic, a United States-based artificial intelligence company, has levied serious accusations against Alibaba, the Chinese tech and e-commerce giant, alleging it conducted the largest known distillation attack on its Claude AI model to date.

Distillation attacks, a method AI companies use to improperly enhance their models, typically involve training a less capable AI on the outputs of a stronger one. Anthropic claims the attack occurred from April 22 to June 5, 2026, involving over 28.8 million exchanges through nearly 25,000 fraudulent accounts.

The company alleges that operators affiliated with Alibaba and its AI lab, Alibaba Qwen, executed the campaign as a means to boost China’s AI capabilities. This revelation was detailed in a letter addressed to Senators Tim Scott and Elizabeth Warren, prior to an impending Senate Banking Committee hearing on AI.