The Chinese Cyberspace Authority is investigating DeepSeek and Moonshot AI over alleged data leaks to Claude.

ChainCatcher report, citing sources from The Information, states that China’s National Internet Information Office has launched an investigation into AI companies DeepSeek and Moonshot AI, following allegations by Anthropic that both firms secretly routed sensitive user data to their servers. According to the report, regulators visited the offices of both companies and interviewed executives and employees, focusing on whether sensitive data related to public security, military, and state-owned enterprises had been transferred to U.S.-based servers. The investigation was triggered by Anthropic’s fourth threat intelligence report, released on September 10. This 154-page document accused seven Chinese labs—Alibaba, Moonshot AI, DeepSeek, Zhipu (Z.ai), MiniMax, SenseTime, and Xiaomi—of engaging in what it calls “illegal distillation”: using outputs from large models to train smaller ones. Anthropic acknowledges that distillation itself is a legitimate practice; its objection lies in the use of fraudulent accounts to carry it out. Initially, the Cyberspace Administration summoned all seven companies named in the report, but later narrowed its focus to DeepSeek and Moonshot AI. Anthropic claims that Moonshot AI routed over 23 million interactions to Claude through 5,380 fraudulent accounts, while DeepSeek generated over 12.1 million interactions within a 14-day window in July. The timing of the investigation is particularly sensitive for both companies.