U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the government will examine open-source AI models from China for signs of intellectual property theft, threatening sanctions against companies involved if such theft is confirmed. Bessent made the remarks on Fox Business, stating that while the administration supports open-source models, it opposes IP theft. 'If we see overseas models stealing from our great companies, we have the ability to sanction them because of this theft,' he said. The comments come amid growing concerns about Chinese AI models, such as Moonshot AI’s Kimi K3, gaining capabilities and popularity, which could threaten the business models of U.S. firms like OpenAI and Anthropic. The administration is also considering a potential ban on Chinese open-source models, though the claim remains disputed. AI companies have long warned about foreign efforts to copy their technology and repurpose it as open-source, with the White House recently pledging to work closely with firms to address the issue. Sanctions against Chinese models would add to a broader strategy by the U.S. to maintain its lead in the AI race, following restrictions on advanced chips and tightened export controls. Washington is now signaling it may target AI models themselves, marking a potential escalation in the technological competition between U.S. and Chinese labs. Model distillation, a technique that allows some of a larger model’s capabilities to be translated into a smaller system, has become a point of contention. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella criticized large labs for assuming that distillation constitutes theft, stating that while innovation from model providers is needed, the current approach imposes restrictive terms on distillation. AI labs’ training practices continue to pose legal risks, as seen with Anthropic, which received approval to start paying authors after a judge ruled it had illegally downloaded and stored millions of copyrighted books to train its AI. Some in the industry argue that distillation is not the only reason China is catching up to U.S. AI companies. Hugging Face CEO Clem Delangue noted that distillation is a small factor in creating good models and that China’s strong research teams and collaborative approach to AI are significant contributors to its progress.
Source: techcrunch
