U.S. officials, including White House OSTP director Michael Kratsios, alleged that Chinese AI company Moonshot AI covertly distilled Anthropic’s Fable model and used illegally obtained export-controlled Nvidia chips to build its Kimi K3 model. AI researchers dispute the claim, arguing that distillation alone could not produce Kimi K3’s capabilities in the short timeframe involved. Experts suggest Moonshot more likely relied on its own technical expertise and possibly earlier frontier models rather than large-scale theft.
