US Quietly Pulled a Chinese AI Tool the FBI Calls Malicious

US government officials removed a Chinese AI search tool from the Federal Register website on Wednesday, after social media users spotted an apparent contradiction: the National Archives was running an Alibaba Qwen model just weeks after the FBI accused such models of illegally copying US frontier AI.

Reuters first reported the removal. The National Archives, which operates the Federal Register site, had briefly given visitors the option to use a Qwen model to search public comments on proposed regulations. It remains unclear exactly when the feature went live.

The episode puts two arms of the federal government in direct conflict. Earlier this month, the FBI named Alibaba among six leading Chinese firms allegedly conducting "industrial-scale distillation" of American frontier models. The agency says this practice helps America's biggest competitor cut costs and development time in the race for global AI leadership.

The National Archives has not commented on the removal and did not respond to Ars Technica's request for comment. The White House and the FBI have also declined to comment.

The National Archives is an independent agency tasked with increasing public access to federal government documents. Its deployment of a Qwen model on the Federal Register — the portal where the public submits comments on proposed regulations — meant a Chinese-developed model was, at least temporarily, mediating access to a core mechanism of US regulatory participation.

The stakes extend beyond one website. The FBI's September accusations against six Chinese AI firms represent a significant escalation in the US government's framing of Chinese AI development as an economic and national security threat. A federal agency simultaneously deploying one of the accused firms' models underscores how little visibility the US government has into which AI systems its own departments adopt — and how quickly Chinese open-weight models like Qwen have spread into production use worldwide.

With no explanation from the National Archives, the White House, or the FBI, the removal leaves open the question of whether other federal sites have experimented with Chinese models, and whether agencies will face new scrutiny over AI procurement choices.