UNITED STATES PERSPECTIVE

Washington doesn't look at DeepSeek V4 through a technologist's eyes -- it looks through a prosecutor's. The same day, NPR reveals a memo from Michael Kratsios, the president's science adviser, accusing foreign entities 'principally based in China' of conducting 'deliberate, industrial-scale campaigns' to 'distill' -- extract capabilities from -- leading US AI models. The administration pledges to work with American companies to identify activities, build defenses, and punish offenders.

The memo arrives as the US-China AI gap has 'effectively closed,' according to a Stanford report. China's embassy in Washington replied that Beijing 'has always been committed to promoting scientific and technological progress through cooperation and healthy competition' and 'attaches great importance to intellectual property protection.'

The House Foreign Affairs Committee has unanimously backed a bill to sanction foreign actors extracting 'key technical features' from closed-source US AI models. Rep. Bill Huizenga calls these extractions 'the latest frontier of Chinese economic coercion.' The timing is not coincidental: the Kratsios memo drops the day DeepSeek announces V4. Washington could not let the launch pass without showing it's fighting back.