Shyam Sankar, chief technology officer of Palantir [AP]
Shyam Sankar, chief technology officer of Palantir [AP]

Shyam Sankar, chief technology officer of Palantir, the US data analytics company, said Wednesday that China has used stolen American AI research to build cutting-edge models of its own, posing an economic threat to the United States.

Speaking at a defense innovation conference in Pennsylvania on Wednesday, Sankar said China's open-source AI models are "effectively the result of distillation attacks" and that "most of them are no more than US intellectual property stolen from labs."

"Distillation" refers to the practice of training a new AI system on the outputs of an existing model, allowing developers to replicate similar performance at a fraction of the cost.

Sankar's remarks reflect growing concern among leading US AI companies about Chinese rivals exploiting distillation strategies. He urged American research labs to do more to protect their intellectual property. "They need to defend their own economic interests," he said.

Meanwhile, Sankar said he does not fault France for choosing a local vendor over Palantir last month to supply data tools for its intelligence agencies.

He described the decision as simply a government choosing to spend its own budget on domestic companies.

Such moves come amid efforts by France and other European nations to promote technological sovereignty and reduce their dependence on American systems, Sankar said.


mokiya@heraldcorp.com