Prateek Tanmay
2 min readNew DelhiJul 5, 2026 02:44 PM IST
Alibaba is expected to prohibit all its employees from using Claude Code, Anthropic’s popular AI programming tool, from July 10 onwards.
The Chinese tech giant has classified Claude Code as a high-risk software. Instead, Alibaba staffers have been instructed to use the company’s own AI coding tool, Qoder, according to multiple news reports.
Anthropic, on the other hand, has already banned Chinese companies and other foreign entities owned by those companies from using any of its AI models and tools. However, loopholes have reportedly allowed China-based users to still access Claude.
In an attempt to close these loopholes, Anthropic is said to have covertly rolled out a Claude version with embedded spyware to track users’ location and whether they are based in China or affiliated with Chinese companies, according to a report by The Information. However, the AI startup has reportedly backtracked these efforts recently.
This was “an experiment we launched in March that was meant to prevent account abuse from unauthorized resellers and protect against distillation. The team has landed stronger mitigations since then and we’ve actually been meaning to take this down for a while,” Anthropic’s Thariq Shihipar said in a post on X.
In recent days, the AI arms race between the US and China has intensified with Chinese companies launching low-cost, high-performance AI models on par with Western rivals.
A model called GLM-5.2, launched last month by Beijing-based startup Z.ai, has Silicon Valley buzzing with its coding and agent capabilities, or the ability to execute complex tasks with minimal prompting, that almost rival leading US offerings at a fraction of the cost, in what some experts are calling a “mini DeepSeek moment.”
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The US government’s recent efforts to restrict access to cutting-edge AI models such as Anthropic’s Claude Fable 5 and Mythos 5 have fueled global interest in Chinese AI alternatives.
Earlier this month, Anthropic said that the US Department of Commerce has lifted export restrictions imposed on Claude Fable 5 and Mythos 5.
