Trump admin says China is raiding American AI labs to speed its own rise

The Trump administration says China is trying to raid American AI labs to move faster. A Financial Times report on Thursday said the White House accused China of carrying out industrial-scale theft of US AI intellectual property and warned it would crack down.

The report cited a memo by Michael Kratsios, director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy.

Kratsios wrote that the US government has information showing foreign entities based in China are engaged in deliberate, industrial-scale campaigns to distill US frontier AI systems.

He said the operations are using tens of thousands of proxy accounts to avoid detection and jailbreaking methods to expose proprietary information. He also said Washington will alert American AI companies to unauthorized attempts at distillation and will consider steps to hold the actors accountable.

White House accuses China of stripping US AI systems while H200 chip sales remain stalled

The fight over stolen AI work is unfolding beside another dispute over advanced chips. Nvidia’s H200 chips are in heavy demand, and supply for the Chinese tech sector had been expected, but US officials say those chips still have not been sold to Chinese companies.

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said Nvidia’s artificial intelligence chips have not yet been sent to Chinese firms, citing difficulties obtaining permission from the Chinese government.

The Trump administration formally approved China-bound sales of H200 chips in January, though with conditions. That decision stirred concern among China hawks in Washington, who fear Beijing could use the technology to strengthen its military.

Even so, shipments have been blocked by disagreements over sale terms in both the United States and China. Asked at a Senate hearing about the delayed sales, Howard said:

“The Chinese central government has not let them, as of yet, buy the chips, because they’re trying to keep their investment focused on their own domestic industry.”

Howard added, “We have not sold them chips as of yet.” The continued delay is likely to please US hardliners who reject the administration’s argument that such sales could discourage Chinese rivals, including heavily sanctioned Huawei, from pushing harder to catch up with American AI chip designers.

But Howard also appeared to step back from a prior pledge to restore in November a rule that would restrict US tech exports to Chinese companies.

China offers massive embodied AI pay packages as export curbs and trade talks stay tangled

The affiliates rule was delayed for one year last November as part of a trade negotiation with China. Howard said, “I agree that the affiliates rule is a smart thing for the United States of America to consider, but it is part of the balance of that full trade agreement.”

He also said the US trade relationship with China is led by President Trump, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, and US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer. Howard added, “I focus on the rest of the world.”

China’s embodied AI sector is in a fierce talent war. Some companies are failing to attract qualified workers even after offering CNY1 million (about $138,000) a year. Job listings show entry-level algorithm engineers in embodied intelligence can earn around CNY30,000 a month, or $4,140. 

Expert-level engineers are offered about CNY50,000 per month, while world-class engineers can get around CNY60,000. Other roles in demand include motion-control algorithm engineers and embedded software engineers, and most technical jobs require at least a master’s degree.

The pay rises. Ubtech Robotics, the world’s first humanoid robot maker to go public, launched a search this month for a chief scientist focused on humanoid robots and embodied intelligence.

The annual pay range is CNY15 million to CNY124 million, or about $2.2 million to $18 million. Last year, Volcano Engine, the cloud unit of ByteDance, began hiring a senior expert in algorithm manipulation for embodied robotics research, with a monthly pay of CNY95,000 to CNY120,000, or about $13,110 to $16,560.

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