US site removed Alibaba AI search after FBI copying claims

A US government website run by the National Archives used Alibaba’s Qwen model as a search option for proposed federal regulations, despite recent FBI allegations that Alibaba copied technology from Anthropic. The Qwen-powered feature was available on the Federal Register website on Wednesday (Sep 16) and was removed around the time social media posts about it began circulating.

The FBI declined to comment, while the National Archives and the White House did not respond to requests for comment. A Chinese embassy spokesperson in Washington called the copying allegations “unfounded”. US officials have alleged that Chinese AI companies are engaged in “malicious” copying of US technology on an “industrial scale”.

Security experts said the Federal Register’s use of Qwen may not have created an immediate national security risk because the site handles public information, but it raised questions about whether the government was undermining its own warnings about Chinese AI. Qwen is an open-weight model, allowing developers to download and modify key components and potentially run it on their own infrastructure.

Lawmakers expressed concern about reliance on Chinese AI tools. Representative John Moolenaar said no federal government entity should use a Chinese AI model, while Senator Mark Warner said the risk depends on whether US data was processed on Alibaba-controlled systems.