China rejects US allegations of AI technology theft

China has rejected U.S. allegations that Chinese artificial intelligence companies stole proprietary technology from American AI models, urging Washington to stop making what Beijing called false accusations.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said the United States should implement agreements reached by the leaders of the two countries and refrain from what she described as accusations and smears against China, Caliber.Az reports per the briefing.

She said the development of advanced Chinese AI systems, including the DeepSeek neural network, demonstrated China’s technological independence and self-sufficiency. Beijing, she added, remained committed to open cooperation on AI-related issues.

Mao said all stakeholders should strengthen cooperation to support the open, inclusive and mutually beneficial development of artificial intelligence, stressing that AI technologies should serve the interests of humanity as a whole.

She also said China and the United States, as major players in AI, should increase their efforts to advance cooperation in the field.

The comments came after three U.S. agencies on September 8 accused six leading Chinese AI companies of carrying out what they described as “aggressive, malicious and targeted distillation activities at an industrial scale,” allegedly with the awareness of the Chinese government.

The joint advisory by the National Security Agency, Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency and FBI named DeepSeek, Moonshot AI, Alibaba, MiniMax, StepFun and Z.AI.

The agencies alleged that the companies used unauthorised distillation of U.S. AI models to extract proprietary knowledge, potentially giving them access to capabilities that could undermine U.S. technological advantages in artificial intelligence.

By Sabina Mammadli