As China's open-source large models continue to impact the US artificial intelligence (AI) industry, the US government is attempting to take further measures to suppress them.
According to Bloomberg, on July 21 local time, U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Teton stated that the U.S. will carefully examine whether Chinese open-source AI models involve any actions that could be considered 'stealing U.S. intellectual property rights.' If such situations are found, sanctions will be imposed.
In a program on Fox Business Channel that day, Besent threatened that the United States has been paying attention to open-source models from China. He mentioned many discussions about the rise of AI in China and its threat to American large language models. However, he said, "We do not support intellectual property theft. If we discover that overseas models have stolen achievements from American companies, we have the capability to sanction these models."
Bloomberg pointed out that last week, Chinese AI company Moon Shadow released its open-source model Kimi K3, which attracted widespread attention in the US tech community. Market concerns are that Chinese companies are using models with lower costs and continuously improving performance to rapidly narrow the gap with leading US companies, and this could even undermine the competitive advantage that Silicon Valley tech giants enjoy due to their substantial investments in AI infrastructure. Affected by these concerns, US tech stocks fell significantly last week.
The report mentioned that in addition to the U.S. Treasury Secretary, American AI companies such as OpenAI and Anthropic have also made several unfounded accusations against Chinese competitors. They alleged that Chinese competitors “used the outputs of leading U.S. models in an unauthorized manner to develop chatbots at costs significantly lower than those incurred by U.S. companies.”
Baisent also accused that the U.S. government has found 'traces' of U.S.-made models in 'many Chinese AI models', saying 'this is unacceptable'.
In the next few days or weeks, we will conduct further investigation into this matter.” He said.
As a member of the U.S. Cabinet responsible for fiscal affairs, Besent also was heavily involved in the development of U.S. government policies regarding AI and trade relations with China. It is reported that he discussed AI security risks with banks and investment institutions, and participated in efforts to establish an independent regulatory agency to review the safety of AI models.
In addition to targeting Chinese AI models themselves, Besent also suggested that the United States may require companies in the future to disclose whether they have used Chinese AI models to their customers.
Another question is whether companies using Chinese AI models should disclose this fact to clients. He referred to the Chinese AI models as "counterfeit goods" and claimed "You cannot use counterfeit goods."
In another interview on the 21st, U.S. Trade Representative Jaime Johnson also told CNN that the Trump administration is evaluating whether China is using "unfair practices" to gain an advantage in global AI competition. "We are closely monitoring how China develops its AI capabilities, so as to ensure that U.S. businesses can compete in a fair environment."
However, Gary Marcus, a renowned American AI scholar and professor emeritus at New York University, wrote in his personal blog on the 20th that Chinese AI models have “almost caught up” with the most advanced levels in the United States. It is unlikely for the United States to “win” this AI competition. Washington should stop viewing AI as a zero-sum game and instead explore paths of international cooperation and public goods.
He suggested, “If AI can be brought back into the public domain and used for medicine and science through international cooperation, this might be the most promising direction at present.”
Marcus also told Trump that if Trump really wanted to win the Nobel Peace Prize, this could be an opportunity to cooperate with China and use AI for the benefit of the public. It would be a “generous gift given to humanity”.
