US Treasury Secretary Bessent warns Chinese open-source AI models may be built on stolen IP
US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent stated that the Trump administration is investigating whether Chinese open-source AI models, such as Moonshot AI's Kimi K3, were built using intellectual property stolen from US companies through a process called distillation. In a Fox Business interview, Bessent called such practices 'theft' and warned of potential sanctions. He noted that US investigators have found 'watermarks' of American large language models on Chinese models. The comments come amid a heated debate in the tech industry, with AI company Anthropic previously accusing Chinese firms of improperly accessing its Claude model. Bessent emphasized support for open-source AI generally but not when built on stolen materials. The administration's stance could lead to regulatory action against Chinese AI models that have recently matched or exceeded US frontier models in benchmarks.
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