US orders global diplomatic push over alleged Chinese AI distillation

The US State Department has ordered a global push to bring attentionto what it says are widespread efforts by Chinese companies,including AI startup DeepSeek, to steal intellectual property fromU.S. artificial intelligence labs, according to a diplomatic cableseen by Reuters. The cable said itspurpose was to “warn of the risks of utilizing AI modelsdistilled from US proprietary AI models, and lay the groundwork forpotential follow-up and outreach by the US government.” Distillation is theprocess of training smaller AI models using output from larger,more expensive ones as part of an effort to lower the costs oftraining a powerful new AI tool. DeepSeek,…