Jensen Huang Claims AI Model Distillation is Competition, Not Theft

NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang stated in an interview with CNBC that using competitors' products for training is a form of competition, rejecting the notion that AI model distillation constitutes theft. He pointed out that people can test others' products, and NVIDIA's products are sometimes disassembled to understand how they work. He hopes others do not learn from NVIDIA products but believes competition can drive progress. If one does not want others to use their products, they can identify customers and discontinue services. U.S. officials have accused Chinese AI companies of using distillation to extract capabilities from American systems. U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessenet called this practice theft in July and threatened sanctions against overseas companies that utilize distillation. The White House did not immediately respond to requests for comment, and U.S. officials are considering taking action. Earlier this month, the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency accused Chinese AI companies of conducting industrial-scale knowledge distillation, violating terms of use for American companies. AI company Anthropic also claimed to have discovered illegal distillation of Alibaba's Qwen series models with DeepSeek. The Chinese side has denied these allegations.