A representative from a Chinese think tank approached officials from Anthropic at a meeting in Singapore last month to insist that the company change its stance and give Beijing access to its powerful new artificial intelligence model, according to people briefed on the discussions.
Anthropic refused.
The request was not an official demand from the Chinese government. But the talks in Singapore were a form of exchange that is often meant to pave the way for formal, direct diplomacy.
When officials from the National Security Council at the White House learned about 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 every possible avenue to swiftly acquire the most powerful artificial intelligence model a U.S. company has produced so far, according to people briefed on 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 liken to the Cold War’s 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 backdrop to the summit this week between the United States and China. President Trump is scheduled to arrive in Beijing on Wednesday, for meetings with the Chinese leader Xi Jinping. While the race to develop the most effective model is unlikely to be discussed, the two sides could talk about access to the chips that power artificial intelligence or guardrails around its use.
Previewing the summit Sunday during a call with reporters, a senior U.S. official said A.I. and cybersecurity were high on the agenda with Beijing, noting concerns with “the latest models of A.I.” The official said the United States and China were exploring how to establish better communication over artificial intelligence, creating a “deconfliction” channel in which experts from each country could address the risks of artificial intelligence.
In April, Anthropic announced a new A.I. model called Mythos. The company said it was withholding it from a public release because it was skilled at finding software vulnerabilities and could cause a cybersecurity reckoning. It made the model available to the U.S. government and more than 40 organizations and companies, so that they could identify and guard against future attacks.
The technology has set off alarm bells across the world. For rivals like China and Russia, it showed the risks of falling behind in the race to develop powerful artificial intelligence. The systems have the potential to give a nation-state the upper hand in defending against — and spearheading — cyberattacks at a vast scope and scale.
For years, U.S. officials have estimated that artificial intelligence models developed by the most advanced American firms are around six months ahead of China’s best models.
But according to some U.S. 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 American officials have been more cautious, noting that China has a track record of catching up quickly.
Last year, innovations by the Chinese firm DeepSeek showcased the country’s ability to close the A.I. gap. And DeepSeek has said that its new model was adapted to run on chips made by the Chinese tech giant Huawei, further underscoring Beijing’s push to keep pace.
Still, Chinese analysts have expressed concern over the potential of the new Anthropic model. One organization, IDC China, said that Mythos posed a significant risk to Chinese companies, and that Anthropic’s limits on its reach created a technology gap. Another analyst, highlighting the cybersecurity threat, wrote that China was sharpening swords while the other side rolled out a Gatling gun.
Chinese analysts have been particularly worried because they view Anthropic as hostile to China. The start-up is currently embroiled in suits with the Pentagon, which announced it would be removed from American government networks after a dispute over how the technology would be used.
But since its founding, Anthropic has geared its business toward U.S. national security customers. It was the first to put its A.I. models on classified American networks, for example, 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 control “from jurisdictions where our products are not permitted, like China, regardless of where they operate.”
Increasingly, both the Chinese and U.S. governments view their artificial intelligence companies — including those that produce the models and the cloud companies that host the computer networks they run on — as national assets. China blocked a $2 billion acquisition by Meta of the Chinese A.I. company Manus. China has also told some of its A.I. start-ups that they cannot accept American investment without government approval.
Anthropic and OpenAI have restricted access to their latest models to a few companies and U.S. government agencies. Both models have the ability to discover previously unknown vulnerabilities in computer networks.
Chinese officials have argued that Anthropic and OpenAI have been wrong to keep a close hold on the models, contending that China needs access to them to find vulnerabilities in software, especially to defend its own critical infrastructure.
The meeting in Singapore was hosted by Carnegie under the ground rules 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 conversations held at the event last month but described the broader meeting as essential to the two countries. “It’s critical for experts in the U.S. and China to maintain lines of communication about the potential risks with A.I.,” he said. “That’s why we host these dialogues.”
Officials from Anthropic declined to discuss the Chinese request.
Liu Pengyu, a spokesman for the Chinese Embassy in Washington, said he was not familiar with the exchange at the Carnegie meeting. But he said China was committed to balancing A.I. development with security.
“China stands ready to strengthen exchanges and cooperation on A.I. with all parties, to foster shared benefits through joint consultation and to work together to create an open, inclusive and mutually beneficial development environment,” he said in a statement.
U.S. officials noted that while a member of a Chinese think tank made the overture, it was all but certain that the Chinese government had approved and directed the message. Beijing typically exercises a strong degree of control over its think tanks, especially when they are engaged in unofficial diplomacy, like that 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 placed on it by the United States, Chinese companies have been more worried about their access to advanced chips, according to American industry officials and independent researchers.
U.S. officials are hoping the American companies will continue to delay China’s access to the most advanced chips so that American 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 strategy on artificial intelligence and to not make its most powerful new models open source, which anyone can use. Putting a model that has the ability to quickly infiltrate networks in the hands of hackers could unleash chaos around the globe, 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. American 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 an arm of the Commerce Department that devises export controls on chips and other technology.
