An AI search feature powered by the Qwen model was disabled on the Federal Register website on Wednesday. The tool used Alibaba's open-weight AI to help users navigate proposed federal regulations and public government documents. This action followed recent allegations from the FBI and other U.S. officials that Alibaba engaged in malicious copying and illicit model distillation of technology from Anthropic.

Experts cited by Reuters said the setup did not pose an immediate security risk given that the content on the Federal Register is public. The National Archives, which operates the site, removed the tool days after the U.S. government detailed the suspected theft of American AI model technology.