China Accused of Theft, US Richest Man Offers Unexpected Comment
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang has expressed a view that differs from the United States government regarding the practice of AI model training via distillation. Huang described the technique of training artificial intelligence models using the output of other models as a form of competition, rather than theft as alleged by the White House.
Huang made these remarks during an interview on CNBC International’s Squawk Box programme. When asked whether distillation constitutes an act of robbery, Huang responded that it is part of competition.
“You are allowed to test other people’s products as much as you like,” said Huang. He explained that Nvidia’s own products are occasionally dismantled to their most basic components by other companies to understand how they function.
“I would actually prefer they didn’t do it. I would prefer that no one studied our products, and we could continue moving forward comfortably. But, honestly, competition makes everything better,” he stated.
Huang also noted that companies wishing to prevent their products from being used in such processes can limit access to their services.
“If you don’t like people using your product, what you have to do is know who your customers are and disable that service,” Huang said.
Huang’s perspective contrasts with the stance taken by US officials. US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, in July, referred to distillation as “theft” and threatened to impose sanctions on foreign companies using the technique to extract capabilities from US-made AI models.
The practice of distillation has become a point of tension in the technological competition between the US and China for AI supremacy. In early September, the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) accused Chinese AI companies of conducting an “industrial-scale knowledge distillation campaign” that violates the terms of use of US companies.
Previously, the AI company Anthropic also claimed to have discovered that Alibaba (developer of the Qwen model family) and DeepSeek were performing “illegal distillation.”
Huang is known as one of the primary beneficiaries of the AI technology boom. Nvidia, which he leads, is the dominant manufacturer of the advanced AI chips essential for AI development.
Currently, Huang is ranked as the 7th richest person in the world according to Forbes, with a net worth of US$196.7 billion, equivalent to approximately Rp3,516 trillion.