{"id":16363,"date":"2026-07-25T03:27:20","date_gmt":"2026-07-24T22:27:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=16363"},"modified":"2026-07-25T03:27:20","modified_gmt":"2026-07-24T22:27:20","slug":"white-house-draws-new-ai-line-on-china","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=16363","title":{"rendered":"White House draws new AI line on China"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><script>\r\n  atOptions = {\r\n    'key' : '644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6',\r\n    'format' : 'iframe',\r\n    'height' : 90,\r\n    'width' : 728,\r\n    'params' : {}\r\n  };\r\n<\/script>\r\n<script src=\"https:\/\/www.highperformanceformat.com\/644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<br \/>\n<br \/><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/images.axios.com\/BCNwcTKxm8I4aWMvwY1NfIQClHY=\/0x0:1920x1080\/1366x768\/2026\/07\/23\/1784839183485.jpeg\" \/><\/p>\n<p>The Trump administration this week staked out a new position that could reshape its approach to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.axios.com\/technology\/automation-and-ai\" target=\"_blank\">AI<\/a> policy, accusing Chinese companies of stealing U.S. technology even as it defends open AI development.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Why it matters:<\/strong> That distinction could become the foundation for U.S. action against Chinese AI companies without broadly restricting the open-weight models that businesses, researchers and startups increasingly rely on.<\/p>\n<hr>\n<p><strong>Driving the news: <\/strong>The Trump administration is backing open-weight models while accusing China&#8217;s Moonshot of using distillation \u2014 the process of training a smaller AI model using the outputs of a larger model \u2014 to copy Anthropic&#8217;s Fable model.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>&#8220;Legitimate AI distillation used to create smaller, more efficient models plays a vital role in this open innovation ecosystem,&#8221; Michael Kratsios, chief technology adviser to President Trump, wrote on X. <\/li>\n<li>However, &#8220;large-scale, covert industrial distillation aimed at stealing proprietary U.S. technology and undermining American research is unacceptable,&#8221; he added.<\/li>\n<li>Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer and State under secretary Jacob Helberg all made similar claims of intellectual property theft. <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>What they&#8217;re saying: <\/strong>OpenAI co-founder Greg Brockman told <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/news\/articles\/2026-07-22\/openai-president-says-kimi-k3-pretty-good-unsure-if-distilled\" target=\"_blank\">Bloomberg<\/a> Wednesday it was too early to tell if recent Chinese models had been distilled off GPT systems. <\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>In a briefing with reporters, Brockman told Axios he had not been involved in any conversation with members of the administration about banning Chinese open models.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Between the lines:<\/strong> The administration is effectively defining two categories of distillation.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Small-scale or authorized distillation that produces cheaper, specialized models is being treated as a normal part of AI development.<\/li>\n<li>Industrial-scale distillation conducted through fraudulent accounts, evasive access techniques or violations of U.S. companies&#8217; terms is being framed as theft.<\/li>\n<li>When asked whether distillation is a technical or policy problem, Brockman said it&#8217;s &#8220;definitely a technical issue.&#8221;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>The big picture: <\/strong>The advent of Moonshot&#8217;s Kimi has riled U.S. policymakers and some industry players. The model is cheaper, and U.S. companies are increasingly opting for these alternatives. <\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The Trump administration could be laying the groundwork for action against potential AI IP theft via distillation.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Zoom in:<\/strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ibm.com\/think\/topics\/knowledge-distillation\" target=\"_blank\">Distillation<\/a> is a common AI practice.<strong> <\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Smaller models that act as students can be distilled from larger models that act as teachers, replicating the teacher model&#8217;s behavior without needing to go through the same training.<\/li>\n<li>That compact model can then run more efficiently while producing outputs similar to the larger model, giving the user access to similar performance that&#8217;s quicker and cheaper.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>The intrigue: <\/strong>The U.K. Artificial Intelligence Security Institute and the U.S. Center for AI Standards and Innovation on Thursday released a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nist.gov\/news-events\/news\/2026\/07\/uk-aisi-caisi-preliminary-assessment-kimi-k3s-cyber-capabilities\" target=\"_blank\">joint evaluation<\/a> of Kimi K3&#8217;s cyber capabilities, determining it performs significantly below other frontier models. <\/p>\n<p><strong>What we&#8217;re watching: <\/strong>The administration&#8217;s comments suggest the White House wants to preserve open AI development while taking a hard line on China as major AI labs <a href=\"https:\/\/www.axios.com\/2026\/07\/22\/openai-anthropic-open-models-trump-china\" target=\"_blank\">warn of misuse<\/a> and open source players emphasize the need for competition. <\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The administration has previously considered adding Chinese AI labs to the Commerce Department&#8217;s Entity List to address risks from open-source models, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.axios.com\/2026\/07\/20\/ai-us-china-open-source-kimi\" target=\"_blank\">as Axios first<\/a> reported, a move that would effectively cut off U.S. access without a license.<\/li>\n<li>This week Bessent made clear in <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/SecScottBessent\/status\/2080008411790368895\" target=\"_blank\">a post on X<\/a> the administration is willing to flex those muscles: &#8220;When PRC firms conduct covert, industrial-scale distillation attacks that cross the line into IP theft, sanctions and Entity List designations will be on the table.&#8221;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<script async=\"async\" data-cfasync=\"false\" src=\"https:\/\/pl30214220.effectivecpmnetwork.com\/9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<div id=\"container-9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\"><\/div>\r\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Trump administration this week staked out a new position that could reshape its approach to AI policy, accusing Chinese companies of stealing U.S. technology even as it defends open AI development. Why it matters: That distinction could become the foundation for U.S. action against Chinese AI companies without broadly restricting the open-weight models that&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16364,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/images.axios.com\/BCNwcTKxm8I4aWMvwY1NfIQClHY=\/0x0:1920x1080\/1366x768\/2026\/07\/23\/1784839183485.jpeg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16363","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-political-news"],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16363","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16363"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16363\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/16364"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16363"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16363"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16363"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}