SAN FRANCISCO: Anthropic is barring Chinese-run companies and organisations from using its artificial intelligence services, the US tech giant said, as it toughened restrictions on “authoritarian regions.”
The startup, heavily backed by Amazon, is known for its Claude chatbot and positions itself as focused on AI safety and responsible development.
Companies based in China, as well as in countries including Russia, North Korea and Iran, are already unable to access Anthropic’s commercial services over legal and security concerns.
ChatGPT and other products from US competitor OpenAI are also unavailable within China – spurring the growth of homegrown AI models from Chinese companies such as Alibaba and Baidu.
Anthropic said in a statement dated Friday that it was going a step further in an update to its terms of service.
Despite current restrictions, some groups “continue accessing our services in various ways, such as through subsidiaries incorporated in other countries,” the US firm said.
So “this update prohibits companies or organisations whose ownership structures subject them to control from jurisdictions where our products are not permitted, like China, regardless of where they operate.”
