Anthropic: Alibaba used 25,000 fake accounts to clone Claude

Key takeaway

• Anthropic has disclosed that Alibaba conducted the largest campaign to extract Claude's capabilities, generating over 28.8 million exchanges through nearly 25,000 fraudulent accounts between April and June.

• The attack occurred after Trump's warnings against AI model cloning and highlights what Anthropic views as a systematic effort by Chinese companies to avoid the costs of training frontier models independently.

• Anthropic is calling on Congress to strengthen export controls, update antitrust law, and penalize such behavior to protect US AI leadership.

3 Key Points

FAQ

How did Alibaba hide the cloning attempt from detection?

Alibaba allegedly used obfuscation techniques and proxy networks to evade detection during the campaign.

What does Anthropic want the US government to do in response?

Anthropic recommended that Congress update antitrust laws to allow AI firms to share information about Chinese tactics, increase export controls on advanced chips, and pass laws penalizing Chinese labs for relying on distillation attacks—such as limiting their access to US models, advanced chips, or data centers outside China.

When did this cloning attack take place?

The attacks occurred between April 22 and June 5.