Chinese AI developers DeepSeek and Moonshot AI relied heavily on outputs from OpenAI’s powerful GPT-6 Astra model to train their latest models, The Information reported on Wednesday, citing people with direct knowledge of the matter.
The practice, known as distillation, has become a flashpoint for leading AI companies as US-China technology competition intensifies, with firms arguing it allows rivals to reproduce advanced capabilities more quickly and cheaply.
Moonshot AI’s Kimi K3.1 Pro model, which was released last week, and DeepSeek’s upgraded V4.1-Flash 1017 model, which was launched on October 17, benefited from distilling Astra, The Information said.
OpenAI, DeepSeek and Moonshot AI did not immediately respond to Reuters requests for comment.
In a September 30 blog post, OpenAI said it had linked a core part of a distillation campaign that began in July to individuals associated with Moonshot AI.
Firms including Anthropic, OpenAI and Google have argued the practice enables rivals to reproduce advanced capabilities more quickly and at lower cost.
Earlier this month, Anthropic said new measures designed to prevent rivals from copying the capabilities of its Claude AI models have reduced data harvested in so-called distillation attacks by about 90% to 99%.