Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. (NYSE:BABA) is in the spotlight Thursday after Anthropic accused the Chinese tech giant of orchestrating a large-scale campaign to extract capabilities from its Claude AI models.
The Allegation
According to a letter reviewed by Reuters, Anthropic wrote to U.S. lawmakers—including Senator Elizabeth Warren and Senator Tim Scott—alleging that operators affiliated with Alibaba and its AI research unit, Qwen, conducted a large-scale “distillation” campaign between April 22 and June 5, 2026. Distillation refers to the practice of training a smaller or less advanced AI model using outputs generated by a more capable system.
Anthropic alleged the effort relied on nearly 25,000 fraudulent accounts that collectively produced more than 28.8 million exchanges with Claude. The company claimed the campaign was aimed at accelerating China’s ability to develop AI systems approaching the capabilities of Anthropic’s advanced Mythos Preview models.
Alibaba and Anthropic did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Alibaba Shares Edge Lower
BABA Price Action: At the time of publication, Alibaba shares are trading 2.79% lower at $97.01, according to data from Benzinga Pro.
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