The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) has issued a memorandum accusing China of extensive theft of American artificial intelligence (AI) technology. OSTP Director Michael Kratsios highlighted that evidence suggests foreign entities, predominantly Chinese, are orchestrating large-scale operations to acquire U.S. AI innovations. Kratsios stated that these efforts involve the use of numerous proxies to facilitate the theft.
The memorandum asserts that models developed from such appropriated technologies lack the robustness and effectiveness of their original counterparts, although they may achieve some benchmarks at a lower cost. Furthermore, the memo claims that these practices can lead to the removal of essential security features from AI models, raising concerns about their reliability and neutrality.
This announcement comes just weeks before a scheduled meeting between President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing, where discussions are expected to cover various topics, including the ongoing conflict in Iran. The talks were initially planned for March but were postponed to mid-May.
The OSTP’s accusations coincide with recent discussions in Congress about China's alleged intellectual property theft, which has been estimated to cost the U.S. economy between $400 billion and $600 billion annually. The dialogue on technology theft has gained prominence, particularly following China's recent advancements in AI, specifically the DeepSeek model, which has been criticized by U.S. companies like Anthropic for allegedly utilizing stolen AI technology through similar proxy methods as outlined in the OSTP's memo.