Key facts
- Alibaba is banning employees from using Claude Code in the workplace starting July 10.
- The company cited alleged security risks, including embedded backdoors, as the reason for the ban.
- US AI company Anthropic stated that Alibaba illicitly extracted capabilities from its Claude AI model.
- Anthropic described the action as a "distillation" effort, training a less capable model on the outputs of a stronger one.
- The alleged campaign involved millions of exchanges with Claude through thousands of fraudulent accounts.
Alibaba is set to ban its employees from using Claude Code in workplace environments starting July 10, citing alleged security risks, including the presence of embedded backdoors. This decision comes after US artificial intelligence company Anthropic PBC accused Alibaba of illicitly extracting capabilities from its Claude AI model.
Anthropic described the alleged campaign, which ran from April 22 to June 5, as a "distillation" effort. This process involves training a less capable model on the outputs of a stronger one, which Anthropic stated was conducted by operators affiliated with Alibaba and its AI lab Qwen. The campaign reportedly generated over 28.8 million exchanges with Claude through nearly 25,000 fraudulent accounts.
Anthropic detailed these findings in a letter sent to US senators Tim Scott and Elizabeth Warren. The company has previously identified similar extraction campaigns by other Chinese AI labs, noting an increase in their intensity and sophistication. The White House has also previously accused China of large-scale theft of US AI labs' intellectual property.