Artificial intelligence Photo: VCG

A White House memo has accused China of carrying out "large-scale theft" of US artificial intelligence (AI) research to advance its own AI models, the Financial Times reported on Thursday local time. Chinese experts say the stigmatization of China's AI development reflects a US attempt to concoct excuses for its crackdown on China tech enterprises amid anxiety over China's AI progress, as well as an unfounded assumption about China's achieved technological progress being driven by its own dedication.

In an internal memo, Michael Kratsios, director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, claimed the US government has information indicating that foreign entities, principally based in China, are engaged in deliberate, industrial-scale campaigns to distill US frontier AI systems.

The administration, Kratsios claimed, will work with American AI companies to identify such activities, build defenses and find ways to punish offenders, the AP reported. 

According to AP, the memo arrived at a time when China is perceived to have challenged US dominance in artificial intelligence, an area where the White House says the US must prevail to set global standards and reap economic and military benefits. But the US-China gap in performance of top AI models has "effectively closed," according to a recent report from Stanford University's Institute for Human-Centered AI.

China's embassy in Washington said it opposed "the unjustified suppression of Chinese companies by the US" responding to the memo, per the AP report. 

"China has always been committed to promoting scientific and technological progress through cooperation and healthy competition. China attaches great importance to the protection of intellectual property rights," said Liu Pengyu, the embassy spokesperson.

Washington has recently intensified pressure on China's tech sector. A US House committee on Wednesday advanced the Multilateral Alignment of Technology Controls on Hardware (MATCH) Act, with Micron Technology reportedly pushing Congress to impose new export restrictions on chipmaking equipment used by Chinese firms, Reuters reported.

Chinese experts believe that by stigmatizing China's AI development, the US attempts to concoct excuses for its crackdown on China tech enterprises amid anxiety over China's AI progress. "Some US politicians continue to adopt a zero-sum mind-set, attempting to preserve technological leadership through smears and restrictions. Such an approach has already proven ineffective in both economic and technological cooperation, warning that escalating curbs could instead slow innovation and undermine global technological progress," Zhou Mi, a senior research fellow at the Chinese Academy of International Trade and Economic Cooperation, told the Global Times on Friday

According to the Financial Times' report, Chris McGuire of the Council on Foreign Relations claimed that Chinese AI companies rely on distillation to offset computing constraints and replicate US model capabilities. 

Xiang Ligang, a veteran industry analyst and director-general of the Zhongguancun Modern Information Consumer Application Industry Technology Alliance, rejected such claims, noting that while the US may hold advantages in AI chips, China leads in areas such as energy supply and computing infrastructure. 

"Nation's west-to-east power transmission program and 'East Data, West Computing' initiative have significantly lowered computing costs, with many overseas companies also utilizing China-based computing resources," said Xiang.

Just as some US politicians were busy stigmatizing China, American firms were in fact citing Chinese open-source technological achievements. Coding tool developer Cursor in March this year launched its Composer 2 model, which drew attention after outperforming leading benchmarks. It was later found the model was fine-tuned based on China's Kimi K2.5, and Elon Musk commented "Yeah, it's Kimi 2.5," China's Securities Times reported. 

In response to inquiries about individual countries that continue to accuse China of infringing on IP rights and "stealing" cutting-edge technologies in critical sectors, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun said on Wednesday that China's development is the result of its own dedication and effort as well as international cooperation that delivers mutual benefits. 

Guo said that China will stay committed to the vision of building a community with a shared future for humanity and the principle of openness, inclusiveness, balance and benefits for all, boost IPR international cooperation and advance a fairer and more just global governance system on IP.

"China is not only the world's factory but is also becoming the world's innovation lab. The allegations of intellectual property theft by China are nothing but baseless narratives," said the spokesperson.