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Treasury threatens sanctions after White House claims Moonshot distilled Anthropic’s Fable

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U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent doubled down on his warnings to Chinese AI companies on Wednesday, saying that sanctions remain on the table after a White House official accused Moonshot of improperly distilling Anthropic’s Fable model. 

Model distillation is a common AI training technique in which a smaller model learns from the outputs of a larger one. While this process can infringe on intellectual property rights, it’s also widely used as a legitimate optimization method. 

“Open source is not open season on American IP,” Bessent posted on X. “When [Chinese] firms conduct covert, industrial-scale distillation attacks that cross the line into IP theft, sanctions and Entity List designations will be on the table.”

Earlier this week, Bessent stated that the U.S. government would examine open source models from China for signs of intellectual property theft and impose sanctions if found. 

Bessent’s latest remarks come hours after the White House’s science and technology policy chief Michael Kratsios accused the China-based Moonshot of conducting large scale distillation against U.S. models. He alleged that Moonshot had acquired Nvidia’s “GB300-equipped servers and has accessed GB300s in Thailand, likely to train its AI models,” raising questions about whether the firm violated U.S. export control rules.

The GB300 servers are part of Nvidia’s Blackwell generation, which are banned from being sold to Chinese companies.  

Some experts dispute the idea that Kimi K3 could have been developed primarily through distillation from Fable, which has only been publicly available since July 1. Moonshot released K3 last week as an open-weight model, and its advanced capabilities have called into question the underlying business models of leading U.S. AI labs, casting doubt on whether they can continue to justify the enormous capital requirements underpinning the frontier AI race. 

The episode has also intensified a broader debate in Washington over the influx of Chinese open models. Some, including former White House AI advisor and current OpenAI Head of Strategic Futures, Dean Ball, have argued that the U.S. should restrict or effectively ban the use of Chinese open-weight models to preserve America’s technological advantage and mitigate potential national security risks. 

TechCrunch has reached out to Moonshot and the Treasury for comment.

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Google justifies its massive AI spending with a booming cloud business

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Alphabet investors have very publicly worried that the company’s massive AI spending isn’t worth the money. With the company’s latest earnings report, those investors should be able to relax a little.

The takeaway: Google’s cloud business — driven largely by enterprise AI adoption — is booming. The search giant saw Google Cloud revenue spike 82% from where it was this time last year, climbing to $24.8 billion. That’s well above last quarter’s generous year-over-year growth, which showed a revenue jump of 63% to $20 billion — and it also handily beats what Wall Street analysts expected for this quarter’s growth (the expectation was $22.46 billion).

Those cloud gains were driven largely by enterprise AI solutions and enterprise AI infrastructure adoption, the company said, while also noting that its backlog of cloud contracting work — that is work that it hasn’t yet converted into revenue — had climbed to $514 billion.

The company’s profit hit $112.1 billion, which is a massive jump from this time last year, when the company reported $28.1 billion in profit, the company’s earnings report shows. Meanwhile, Alphabet’s overall revenue grew 24% year-over-year during the past quarter to $119.8 billion. The company also saw Google Services revenue jump 15% to $94.5 billion.

“Our AI investments are redefining what’s possible across every part of our business,” said Google CEO Sundar Pichai during Wednesday’s earnings call. “We have exciting momentum across the board.”

More people are also adopting Gemini, Google’s AI chatbot, as the app currently enjoys 950 million monthly active users, the company said. In Q4 of 2025, Google reported that the app had 750 million users.

It’s worth noting that spiking revenue isn’t unusual for Google. This marks the company’s 12th consecutive quarter of double-digit revenue growth. But even by that standard, this quarter represents a particularly bountiful period for the tech giant.

Alphabet’s spending is still hefty, with its capital expenditures — the money it spends building data centers, buying chips, and expanding infrastructure — estimated to be between $180 billion and $190 billion for the year — a fact not lost on analysts during Wednesday’s earnings call. Several pressed Pichai on when, and how much, those investments will pay off.

“I think our compute capacity investments in ’27,” he said. “We are seeing strong demand indicators, including long-term deals,” he continued. “I think, if anything, the dynamics look healthier than where we were about a year ago, so that’s what gives us the confidence to undertake those investments,” he said.

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Samsung Unveils Galaxy Z Fold8 Ultra and Fold8 at Unpacked 2026

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Samsung’s Galaxy Z Fold8 Ultra and Fold8 debut at Unpacked 2026 with new cameras, AI tools, prices, and clear trade-offs for buyers choosing a foldable.

The post Samsung Unveils Galaxy Z Fold8 Ultra and Fold8 at Unpacked 2026 appeared first on TechRepublic.

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China Considers Export Controls on AI Models, Training Data and Chip Technology

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China is considering tighter controls on AI models, training data, and chip designs, potentially limiting how Chinese technology reaches global users.

The post China Considers Export Controls on AI Models, Training Data and Chip Technology appeared first on TechRepublic.

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