- Alibaba bans access to Claude Code, tells employees to use internal Qoder instead
- Anthropic tracked markers to indicate which users were in China
- Anthropically, Alibaba charged a great effort for Claude model distillation
Alibaba has reportedly banned its employees from using Claude Code internally, starting on July 10, 2026, classifying it as a high-risk tool that risks organizational security.
The change follows similar trends already observed among US tech giants, banning Chinese tools from internal use, but Alibaba cited genuine concerns that have been acknowledged by Claude maker Anthropic.
The ban could also be seen as a push for Alibaba’s own alternative, where workers are advised to use the company’s own Qoder AI assistant instead.
Alibaba bans Claude Code due to security concerns
The controversy stems from developers reverse-engineering the Claude Code, revealing that it contained code to identify Chinese users. Checks for Chinese system time zones, proxy servers, AI lab infrastructure, and network characteristics were all exposed.
Anthropic stated that this experimental feature was launched in March and was designed to combat unauthorized traders, prevent account abuse and protect its models from AI distillation.
However, the spyware was allegedly hidden using obfuscation and steganographic techniques, making them effectively invisible to users.
It’s not the first time both companies have found themselves in a sticky situation—Anthropic recently accused Alibaba of carrying out the largest known model distillation attack against Claude (via Pakinomist).
More broadly, Chinese companies have increasingly turned to domestic AI tools such as Qwen, DeepSeek, Moonshot and Ship amid growing geopolitical tensions.
While this trend has been largely mirrored in the US, in favor of OpenAI, Anthropic, Google Cloud and xAI, US firms have reportedly been exploring cheaper Chinese alternatives in the name of cost efficiency.
Alibaba and Anthropic have yet to publicly comment on this matter.
Follow TechRadar on Google News and add us as a preferred source to get our expert news, reviews and opinions in your feeds.
