China Rejects US AI Technology Theft Accusations

Beijing on Friday refuted accusations from the White House that Chinese entities were involved in "industrial-scale" efforts to steal US artificial intelligence technology. White House science and technology chief Michael Kratsios had warned Washington would "be taking action to protect American innovation".

At a regular news conference in Beijing, Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Guo Jiakun stated, "The US claims are entirely baseless." He added, "They are a slanderous smear against the achievements of China's artificial intelligence industry. China firmly opposes this."

Guo urged the US to "respect the facts, abandon prejudice, cease technological containment and suppression of China and do more to facilitate technological exchange and cooperation between the two countries."

The rebuttal follows the release of a new AI model by Chinese startup DeepSeek. Kratsios had accused "foreign entities, primarily in China" of "distillation", a practice used in AI development to create smaller, more efficient models.