A BBC report based on US officials portrays China’s Moonshot AI as pursuing a large-scale effort to acquire top US AI capabilities. Michael Kratsios, who serves as President Trump’s Science and Technology adviser, described Moonshot’s approach as distillation — a process in which a weaker model extracts answers from a stronger one. Kratsios also said Moonshot gained access to restricted Nvidia servers to train its models. He asserted that Moonshot distilled capabilities from Anthropic’s Fable AI to develop its K3 model. Since its unveiling last week, Kimi K3 has drawn global attention, with observers arguing it narrows the gap between Western and Chinese AI systems. Moonshot has contended that K3 can rival leading US technology.
The allegations followed Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent’s remarks that the US would examine whether Chinese AI models have stolen capabilities from American rivals. Bessent warned that overseas models threatening US large language models could face sanctions. The story comes as Trump is anticipated to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping in September. The BBC said it contacted Moonshot, Anthropic, the White House, and Nvidia for comment.
Source material also notes the broader context of US-Chinese scrutiny of AI capabilities and the potential for policy responses as the technology race intensifies.
