Alibaba Shares Fall After Anthropic Alleges Massive AI Model Distillation Campaign

Alibaba Group's Hong Kong-listed shares dropped sharply on Thursday after reports revealed that U.S.-based artificial intelligence company Anthropic accused the Chinese tech giant of conducting a large-scale campaign to extract capabilities from its Claude AI models. The news intensified investor concerns over growing tensions in the global AI industry, sending Alibaba's Hong Kong stock down 5% to HK$94.55, its lowest level since February 2025. Meanwhile, the company's U.S.-listed shares had already closed 3% lower on Wednesday.

According to a letter reportedly sent by Anthropic to U.S. senators and White House officials, operators allegedly connected to Alibaba's Qwen AI research division used thousands of fraudulent accounts to bypass platform safeguards and access Claude's advanced capabilities. Bloomberg News first reported on the letter, which claimed the activity took place between April 22 and June 5.

Anthropic alleged that nearly 25,000 fake accounts generated more than 28.8 million interactions with its Claude AI model during the campaign. The company believes the objective was to extract valuable outputs from Claude to enhance competing AI systems through a process known as AI model distillation.

AI distillation is a common machine learning technique that enables a smaller model to learn from the outputs of a more advanced system. While the method is widely used across the AI industry, Anthropic claims this incident represents the largest known distillation effort targeting its technology and alleges that operators linked to Alibaba and its Qwen AI lab were responsible.

The allegations come as U.S. authorities continue increasing scrutiny over Chinese access to advanced American artificial intelligence technologies. The dispute also reflects the intensifying competition between leading U.S. and Chinese AI developers, who are investing billions of dollars in building next-generation generative AI models while working to safeguard their proprietary innovations.

Although Alibaba has not publicly responded to the reported accusations, the controversy has added fresh uncertainty for investors. The latest developments highlight the growing importance of AI security, intellectual property protection, and regulatory oversight as the global race to develop cutting-edge artificial intelligence continues to accelerate.