The National Archives Qwen AI deployment

On September 21, reporting added that the FBI had specifically accused Alibaba of 'malicious' copying of technology from Anthropic, beyond its earlier claim that Alibaba was among six Chinese firms conducting industrial-scale distillation of US frontier models.

Analysis framing the Archives' brief Qwen deployment on the Federal Register as a supply-chain problem described development teams potentially including compromised components through open-source dependency chains, termed 'shadow dependencies'; experts expect the episode to push agencies toward stronger AI component audits.

On September 19, social media users flagged that the National Archives had deployed an Alibaba Qwen AI model on the Federal Register website to help visitors search proposed-regulation comments, contradicting the FBI's position that Alibaba is among six Chinese firms conducting 'industrial-scale distillation' of US frontier models.

The Archives removed the tool after the attention; neither it, the White House, nor the FBI commented, and when the model was first added to the site is unclear. A piece in The Atlantic argues separately that US rhetoric about an existential AI race with China is not matched by policy, citing lax chip export controls and no effort to draw China's AI engineers to the US.

Foreign policy scholar published argument that US cannot credibly pressure China on AI restraint without domestic AI governance

Senator Bernie Sanders urged Presidents Trump and Xi to negotiate a treaty pausing AI development and banning superintelligence