Anthropic Reports Industrial-Scale Model Distillation Activity
Narrative
Anthropic disclosed evidence of large-scale account abuse allegedly linked to DeepSeek, Moonshot AI, and MiniMax. According to the company, over 24,000 accounts generated approximately 16 million Claude interactions, consistent with systematic model distillation attempts. Anthropic framed the activity as both a commercial threat and a safety concern.
Reality
Announced February 23, 2026. Anthropic stated the activity was detected through internal monitoring systems and positioned it as part of broader geopolitical tensions in AI model competition.
Implication
Reveals structural vulnerabilities in API-based frontier model access. Signals that model capability extraction has become a strategic vector in US-China AI competition. Governance pressure likely to increase around inference access and export control.