China-linked actors target more than technology as AI competition with U.S. intensifies

Cyberattacks aimed at stealing American artificial intelligence technology are increasingly expanding from technology-based attacks to exploiting human-level vulnerabilities, with China-based actors increasingly playing a role.

“As the race for artificial intelligence intensifies, [People’s Republic of China] Matt Pearl, strategic technologies program manager at the US-based think tank Center for Strategic and International Studies, said it was increasingly targeting the technology sector.

Rather than focusing on a specific trade secret, such as hardware designs, hackers are broadening their interest in anything that could narrow the three-to-four-month AI gap with the U.S., Pearl said. This ranges from understanding a company’s product roadmap to identifying weaknesses in supply chains, he said, especially in highly competitive industries.

The alleged cases are already piling up.

In June, US-based cybersecurity giant CrowdStrike said more than half of state-sponsored attacks targeting technology companies, particularly AI assets, in the 12 months to March 31 originated from Chinese entities.

American technology start-up Anthropic also blamed Chinese companies. Alibaba’srelated to illegal enterprises To steal AI abilities. Alibaba’s did not respond to a request for comment.

Last year, US-based artificial intelligence content detection startup Copyleaks announced the answers generated by Chinese startup DeepSeek’s R1 model. it looked like these Almost three-quarters were produced by OpenAI’s ChatGPT, suggesting that the open-source Chinese model may have been trained on the US-developed model.

“We didn’t see [the same stylistic match] in other masters,” said Alon Yamin, CEO and co-founder of Copyleaks.

DeepSeek and OpenAI did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Brian Abbott, founder and CEO of U.S.-based startup Agentiq Capital, told CNBC in June that he believed an employee he hired from China last year was a representative of Beijing who deliberately altered code and website content to prevent the company from receiving venture capital funding.

Abbott claimed the employee replaced references to “ASI,” or artificial superintelligence, with the once-trending term “fintech,” which many investors did not like.

The man was fired earlier this year and the company filed a complaint with the FBI, Abbott said. CNBC could not independently verify the claim.

“China’s economic espionage campaign is an ongoing threat that costs the American economy hundreds of billions of dollars annually and puts our national security at risk,” the FBI said in a statement to CNBC. he said.

“The FBI prioritizes investigating possible theft of U.S. technology by foreign actors and remains uncompromising in our commitment to protecting the homeland.”

The Cyberspace Administration of China and the US State Department had no comment when contacted by CNBC. None of those interviewed for this article said they had heard of similar examples of state-directed destruction of US technology.

Graham Webster, editor-in-chief Stanford University’s DigiChina ProjectHe said it can be difficult to separate state-sponsored espionage from efforts at the individual or corporate level.

He also noted that conversations about Chinese AI are also influenced by major U.S. companies preparing for major initial public offerings.

“[The] Webster says narrative trumps reality in many decisions.

“The US government is trying to hold China back to some extent,” he added, referring to technology export controls. “We shouldn’t be surprised if the Chinese government is trying otherwise.”

Capital has been the decisive driver of the AI ​​race so far, with start-ups vying to rival or position themselves against tech giants. acquisitions.

Antropik made an announcement on June 11 Program called Claude Corps Training 1,000 people in AI and matching them with U.S. nonprofits Meanwhile, in China, policymakers have rolled out significant AI support for startups, including free or subsidized computing power and rent-free office space.

Isaac Stone Fish, founder and managing director of consultancy Strategy Risks, said Beijing tends to focus more on large companies, but startups remain particularly vulnerable because they lack cyber expertise.

“And Beijing’s initiative[s] It has definitely increased over the last 18 months since the launch of DeepSeek really kicked off the US-China AI race,” Stone Fish said.

“Beijing wants to ensure that Chinese companies are at the forefront of the global artificial intelligence race,” he said. “One way to do this is to try to suppress the development of American AI companies, sometimes through supply chain restrictions, employee harassment, hacking, government subsidies targeting copycat competitors, among other strategies.”

“We have seen numerous cases in our company, where new employees joining the company instantly become targets of cyber attacks to gain access to our AI models,” said Yamin from Copyleaks. He expects to see more such cases.

For startups, balancing rapid innovation with security remains a challenge.

Abbott said the employee he hired was initially willing to work for free and was eventually paid several thousand dollars a month in addition to stock options before being fired.

“If we paid market rate to everyone, I could never afford it for a puny start-up,” he said, emphasizing “the need to secure our start-up economy in the US.”