China's Commerce Ministry: "US Trying to Monopolize AI Industry Under Pretext of 'AI Distillation Crackdown'"

Regarding the U.S. government's criticism that Chinese artificial intelligence (AI) companies are trying to catch up with U.S. firms through "distillation" techniques, China's Ministry of Commerce has criticized that distillation is merely a pretext and an attempt to monopolize the AI industry.

According to the website of China's Ministry of Commerce today (the 10th), a Ministry spokesperson stated through a Q&A session the previous day, "The U.S. is politicizing and weaponizing normal technical and commercial issues in the industry."

Distillation is a method of retraining a company's own AI by harvesting responses from other AI models.

U.S. authorities previously announced that Chinese companies are infringing on the intellectual property rights of U.S. firms through industrial-scale distillation.

China's Ministry of Commerce stated, "The U.S. announcement is yet another clear evidence of pursuing scientific and technological hegemony in the AI sector, monopolizing computing power, and suppressing competition," adding, "China firmly opposes this."

It continued, "Distillation is a common method in the AI field where various models learn from each other. It is fundamentally a neutral technology used by global AI model companies, including U.S. firms," and called it "(U.S. criticism) a textbook double standard."

The ministry argued that while China uses open-source methods to open up to the world and U.S. companies also distill Chinese models on a large scale, the U.S. is unilaterally criticizing and attacking Chinese companies.

China's Ministry of Commerce stated, "The U.S. approach is a typical attempt to monopolize the industry under the pretext of cracking down on distillation," adding, "It mobilizes state power organs to interfere in normal business activities."

It also warned, "If the U.S. tries to suppress Chinese companies under the pretext of cracking down on distillation, China will strike back with resolute measures."

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning also said the previous day, "China's AI development is the achievement of a high level of scientific and technological self-reliance and strength," adding, "We hope there will be no factually unfounded accusations and smearing against China."

Liu Wei, director of the Human-Machine Interaction and Cognitive Engineering Laboratory at Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, pointed out in an interview with the Global Times that the U.S. habitually attempts to equate commercial and technological competition with national security, thereby trying to justify additional sanctions.

(Photo: Getty Images)
※ Please note: This article was translated by AI and may contain errors.