US Warns of AI Theft Threats from Chinese Firms

The US State Department has initiated a global alert concerning alleged efforts by Chinese companies, particularly the AI startup DeepSeek, to steal intellectual property from American AI labs. A diplomatic cable, disseminated to consulates worldwide, advises staff to communicate these concerns to foreign officials, highlighting risks associated with adversaries' extraction and distillation of US AI models. Distillation refers to the training of smaller models using the output of larger, more complex models to reduce development costs.