🤖 Big news! U.S. AI startup Anthropic has expanded its restrictions on Chinese entities, blocking not only companies based in the Chinese mainland but also their subsidiaries overseas. The move, announced Sept 5, comes amid growing national security concerns about where cutting-edge AI tech lands.
🌐 Previously, users from the Chinese mainland—as well as from Russia, the DPRK and Iran—were already cut off from Anthropic's commercial services. But some groups got around the ban by setting up shops abroad. Now, any organization that's more than 50% owned, directly or indirectly, by entities in those regions will be blocked, no matter where it operates.
⚖️ "This is the first time a major U.S. AI company has imposed a formal, public prohibition of this kind," says Nicholas Cook, a lawyer with 15 years of AI-industry experience. But he notes the real impact might be modest—U.S. providers already face big barriers in these markets and many have turned to local AI solutions.
💰 Anthropic, backed by Amazon and valued at 183 billion dollars, is best known for its Claude chatbot. Founded in 2021 by former OpenAI executives, the San Francisco-headquartered startup has raised 13 billion dollars and now serves over 300,000 business customers worldwide. Executives tell the Financial Times they expect the new policy to hit revenues by the low hundreds of millions of dollars.
🗣️ When asked about the policy, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun said he wasn't familiar with the details but stressed that "China opposes politicizing trade and sci-tech issues and using them as a weapon and a tool. Such practice does no one good."
📚 On top of the new restrictions, Anthropic recently agreed to pay a landmark 1.5 billion dollar settlement to authors who accused the company of pirating millions of books to train Claude. Lawyers call it the largest copyright recovery in history and the first of its kind in the AI era.
✨ For young professionals, entrepreneurs and tech fans, this development underlines how AI is becoming a geopolitical chess game where security, commerce and creativity collide. Stay tuned as the AI battleground continues to evolve! 🌍
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U.S. AI startup Anthropic expands restrictions on Chinese entities
cgtn.com
