Chinese AI Firms DeepSeek and Moonshot Under Investigation for Alleged Data Transfer to Anthropic
China's Cyberspace Administration is investigating two domestic AI companies, DeepSeek and Moonshot AI, for allegedly routing user data to the U.S.-based AI firm Anthropic without customer knowledge. This investigation was triggered by a 154-page threat intelligence report published by Anthropic on September 10, which accused seven China-based AI labs, including DeepSeek and Moonshot, of 'illicit distillation.' Anthropic's report claims these companies used its Claude AI model to harvest outputs for their own model training. Following the report, the Cyberspace Administration summoned representatives from all seven named companies, eventually narrowing its focus to DeepSeek and Moonshot. Officials have reportedly visited both firms to question executives and staff, and the investigation is ongoing, with no determination on potential penalties yet made. Specific examples cited in Anthropic's report include Moonshot's chatbot, Kimi, allegedly passing a user's request and surveillance footage to Claude, and D...