A representative from a Chinese think tank approached Anthropic officials at a meeting in Singapore last month to insist that the company change its position and give Beijing access to its powerful new artificial intelligence model, according to people briefed on the discussions.
Anthropically rejected.
The request was not an official demand from the Chinese government. But the talks in Singapore were the kind of exchange often intended to pave the way for formal, direct diplomacy.
When White House National Security Council officials learned of the exchange at the meeting, which was convened by the Washington-based Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, they reacted with alarm. Some Trump administration officials saw it as another sign that Beijing would try all avenues to quickly acquire the most powerful artificial intelligence model yet produced by a U.S. company, according to people familiar with the discussions.
However subtle, the outreach is a sign of the intensifying competition between China and the United States over artificial intelligence, which a growing number of national security officials and analysts have begun to compare to the Cold War nuclear arms race. Chinese analysts see the release of the latest models from Anthropic and ChatGPT as a significant advance in American technology, one that could pose a threat to China.
The escalating rivalry is an important background to this week’s summit between the US and China. President Trump is scheduled to arrive in Beijing on Wednesday for meetings with Chinese leader Xi Jinping. Although the race to develop the most efficient model will hardly be discussed, the two sides could talk about access to the chips that drive artificial intelligence or guardrails around its use.
Previewing the summit on Sunday during a call with reporters, a senior US official said AI and cyber security were high on the agenda for Beijing, noting concerns with “the latest models of AI”. The official said the US and China were exploring how to establish better communication over artificial intelligence, creating a “deconfliction” channel where experts from each country could address artificial risks.
In April, Anthropic announced a new AI model called Mythos. The company said it withheld it from a public release because it was adept at finding software vulnerabilities and could cause a cybersecurity breach. It made the model available to the US government and more than 40 organizations and companies to identify and protect against future attacks.
The technology has set off alarm bells around the world. For rivals such as China and Russia, it showed the risk of falling behind in the race to develop strong artificial intelligence. The systems have the potential to give a nation-state the upper hand in defending against – and spearheading – cyber attacks on a large scale and scale.
For years, US officials have estimated that artificial intelligence models developed by the most advanced US firms are about six months ahead of China’s best models.
But according to some US government and industry officials, the latest models — OpenAI’s ChatGPT 5.5 as well as Anthropic’s Mythos — have drastically extended the lead, potentially by nine months to a year. Other US officials have been more cautious, noting that China has a track record of catching up quickly.
Last year, innovations from Chinese company DeepSeek demonstrated the country’s ability to close the AI gap. And DeepSeek has said its new model was adapted to run on chips made by Chinese tech giant Huawei, further underscoring Beijing’s efforts to keep pace.
Still, Chinese analysts have expressed concern about the potential of the new anthropic model. One organization, IDC China, said Mythos posed a significant risk to Chinese companies and that Anthropic’s limits to its reach created a technology divide. Highlighting the cyber security threat, another analyst wrote that China was sharpening swords while the other side rolled out a Gatling gun.
Chinese analysts have been particularly concerned because they view Anthropic as hostile to China. The start-up is currently embroiled in a suit with the Pentagon, which announced it would be removed from US government networks after a dispute over how the technology would be used.
However, since its founding, Anthropic has focused its business on US national security customers. It was, for example, the first to put its AI models on classified US networks, and has long taken pains to keep its technology out of the hands of the Chinese. In September, Anthropic expanded restrictions on its technology to include companies whose ownership structures made them vulnerable to scrutiny “from jurisdictions where our products are not allowed, like China, wherever they operate.”
Increasingly, both the Chinese and US governments view their artificial intelligence companies — including those that produce the models and cloud companies that host the computer networks they run on — as national assets. China blocked a $2 billion acquisition of Meta by Chinese AI firm Manus. China has also told some of its AI start-ups that they cannot accept US investment without government approval.
Anthropic and OpenAI have restricted access to their latest models to a few companies and US government agencies. Both models have the ability to detect previously unknown vulnerabilities in computer networks.
Chinese officials have argued that Anthropic and OpenAI have been wrong to hold close to the models, arguing that China needs access to them to find vulnerabilities in software, particularly to defend its own critical infrastructure.
The Singapore meeting was hosted by Carnegie under the stipulation that participants would not attribute the information discussed at the meetings. Many of the sessions dealt with domestic regulation of artificial intelligence.
The direct request by the Chinese think tank official was made on the sidelines of the meeting, not during one of the formal sessions, according to people briefed on the events.
Matt Sheehan, a Carnegie senior fellow and the organizer of the Singapore meeting, declined to comment on the talks at the event last month, but described the broader meeting as significant for the two countries. “It is critical for experts in the United States and China to maintain lines of communication about the potential risks of AI,” he said. “That’s why we host these dialogues.”
Anthropic officials declined to discuss the Chinese request.
Liu Pengyu, a spokesman for the Chinese Embassy in Washington, said he was not aware of the exchange at the Carnegie meeting. But he said China was committed to balancing artificial intelligence development with security.
“China is ready to strengthen exchanges and cooperation on artificial intelligence with all parties, to promote mutual benefits through joint consultation, and to work together to create an open, inclusive and mutually beneficial development environment,” he said in a statement.
US officials noted that while a member of a Chinese think tank made the overture, it was almost certain that the Chinese government had approved and corrected the message. Beijing typically exercises a strong degree of control over its think tanks, especially when engaged in unofficial diplomacy, such as the type of exchange known as a Track 2 dialogue.
While China’s official government line has been that its technology sector will be able to innovate independently and can overcome restrictions imposed on it by the US, Chinese companies have been more concerned about their access to advanced chips, according to US officials and independent researchers.
U.S. officials hope the U.S. companies will continue to delay China’s access to the most advanced chips so that U.S. spy agencies may be able to use the new program to gain access to sensitive Chinese networks, according to former U.S. officials.
Industry officials are trying to persuade China to change its artificial intelligence strategy and not make its most powerful new models open source for anyone to use. Putting a model that has the ability to quickly infiltrate networks into the hands of hackers could unleash chaos around the world, security experts have said.
But Chinese officials remain skeptical as the United States continues to look for ways to extend its lead over competition from Beijing. US companies including Anthropic, OpenAI and Google have accused Chinese firms of trying to steal their technology by essentially copying a model’s core competencies. Reuters reported last month that the State Department had sent a diplomatic complaint to China warning it against the practice.
Congress and the Trump administration are also increasing funding for a part of the Commerce Department that devises export controls for chips and other technology.
