Press Releases

Today, Congressman Bill Huizenga (R-MI) announced the introduction of H.R. 8283, the Deterring American AI Model Theft Act. Companies such as OpenAI, Google, and Anthropic have all indicated publicly that they have faced “distillation” attacks from State-backed Chinese AI companies. These attacks systematically extract and steal critical data, such as model weights, architectures, and other technical characteristics, that foreign adversaries use to build their own AI models for cheap while bypassing compute restrictions. Distillation attacks are the latest avenue of Chinese economic coercion and theft of U.S. intellectual property and poses a direct threat to the national security of the United States and the economic competitiveness of U.S. companies.

The Deterring American AI Model Theft Act addresses this problem by authorizing discretionary sanctions, creating a name and shame list of AI thieves, and approving a pathway for the U.S. State Department to interphase with private industry to share best practices and study attacks to strengthen defense.

“Model extraction attacks are the latest frontier of Chinese economic coercion and theft of US intellectual property,” said Congressman Bill Huizenga. “American AI models are demonstrating transformative cyber capabilities, and it is critical we prevent China from stealing these technological advancements. I am proud to champion the Deterring American AI Model Theft Act to advance the third pillar of the Trump Administration’s AI Action Plan. We must be more proactive in stopping the circumvention of US export controls by foreign adversaries.”

“American AI leadership rests on two pillars: the ingenuity of our innovators and the resolve, including of our government, to safeguard what our innovators build from those who seek to steal it. The Deterring American AI Model Theft Act of 2026 establishes a clear—and sorely needed—framework to identify foreign actors extracting American models, hold them accountable through existing authorities, and strengthen coordination between innovators and government. We commend Representative Huizenga for introducing it and urge the House Foreign Affairs Committee (HFAC) to advance it.” - Meredith Potter, Executive Director, American Security Fund

Distillation, when carried out with the approval of the AI model owner, is a legitimate and valuable tool for research and innovation. This bill protects such activity by disentangling it from illicit “model extraction attacks.”