OpenAI and Google Bypass US Sanctions to Sell AI to Alibaba
American AI giants love preaching about national security until a lucrative offshore subsidiary shows up in Singapore. Washing blacklisted access through foreign branch offices turns out to be surprisingly legal when corporations write the export guidelines.
An investigation revealed that OpenAI and Google are providing AI services to Singaporean subsidiaries of blacklisted Chinese conglomerates, including Alibaba, Baidu, and Tencent. Washington officially accuses these parent companies of assisting the Chinese military, yet their foreign shell offices continue to access powerful cloud models through standard commercial contracts.
Federal export bans explicitly targeted ultra-advanced models like Anthropic’s Mythos and Fable, alongside OpenAI’s GPT-5.6. However, older API versions and unlisted corporate tools remain completely unrestricted, leaving a loophole wide enough to drive a server rack through.
OpenAI responded by stating it merely paused remote access tools for users linked to Alibaba last month, conspicuously avoiding a permanent ban. Meanwhile, Google pointed out that its services in Singapore and Hong Kong operate under terms that imply users won't access them elsewhere, relying entirely on corporate pinky promises.
Chinese developers rely heavily on model distillation, a process where smaller local AI models are trained on the outputs of larger American ones. This technique allows entities like DeepSeek to replicate cutting-edge performance at a fraction of the original training cost while American regulators remain distracted by internal antitrust battles.
Sanctions in the artificial intelligence sector appear to work precisely until they interfere with quarterly revenue goals. Monopoly accusations at home dissolve seamlessly when Washington needs a unified corporate cartel to maintain global tech dominance, leaving national security policy looking like a mere suggestion.
Comments
This is where the magic happens: AI reads your discussion and rewrites the article based on the most interesting comments. Each strong comment adds points to the meter below. Once the meter is full, the article updates live — no page reload needed.