U.S. Companies Claim China Is Using Their Tech To Build AI Models. Now Congress Wants To Take Action

Lawmakers are taking aim at Chinese AI models, which they say are being developed with stolen U.S. technology.

NBC News reported that the bipartisan members of Congress plan to introduce legislation meant to protect American AI companies such as OpenAI and Anthropic.

The legislation is being introduced by Sens. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., and Jim Banks, R-Ind., and Reps. Bob Latta, R-Ohio, and George Whitesides, D-Calif.

It would, among other things, target alleged Chinese copycats who U.S. AI companies claim is stealing technology to create AI models. The bill, if passed, would treat such behavior as a U.S. security threat. It also would exempt antitrust laws, allowing AI companies to join forces and create a unified response to such action.

Several recent AI models made in China have garnered the attention of U.S. officials and companies. GLM 5.2, an open weight AI model, appeared to be on par with Claude Opus 4.8 and OpenAI's GPT-5.5, Axios reported.

A Graphistry analysis of GLM-5.2 stated that it might be an "illegal distillation of both GPT-5.5 and Opus 4.8." The analysis further noted that "Anthropic reported several months ago that Chinese-origin model companies are performing distillation attacks to steal their model weights, so high correlation scores and similar incorrect answers are noteworthy."

More recently, alarm bells sounded over the unveiling of Chinese AI company Moonshot's release of Kimi 3. CNBC reported that Kimi three closed the performance gap with frontier models such as Anthropic's Fable 5 and OpenAI's GPT 5.6 Sol. In some cases, Kimi 3 even beat them.

CNBC reported that the White House asserted that Moonshot accessed advanced Nvidia chips in the development of Kimi 3, despite export controls meant to ban them in China.

China has denied any unscrupulous actions relating to the development of its AI models.

"China has consistently attached great importance to the protection of intellectual property and is committed to safeguarding, in a fair and impartial manner, the lawful rights and interests of both domestic and foreign IP holders," Liu Chang, a spokesperson for the Chinese Embassy in Washington, said in a statement to NBC News.

"China's development is driven by its own sustained efforts and has also benefited from mutually beneficial international cooperation," he said. "Relevant individuals in the United States should respect the facts, discard prejudice, and stop smearing and discrediting China's achievements in the development of its artificial intelligence industry," the statement said.