Alibaba bans Anthropic AI products over security risks

Alibaba will ban employees from using Anthropic’s Claude Code and AI products from July 10, citing security risks. The move follows an internal audit and similar actions by other major firms.

Alibaba will prohibit employees from using Anthropic’s Claude Code and all Anthropic AI products starting July 10, citing concerns over potential embedded backdoor security risks. The company has classified Claude Code as high-risk software and instructed staff to uninstall all Anthropic products, including Sonnet, Opus, and Fable models. This decision follows an internal security audit and comes after Anthropic accused Alibaba of orchestrating a large-scale AI model distillation scheme using thousands of fake accounts—allegations Alibaba has not publicly addressed. The ban also ends Alibaba’s reimbursement program for third-party AI tools and encourages the adoption of domestic alternatives such as Qwen models. Other major firms, including Meta, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan, ByteDance, and Ant Group, have recently imposed similar restrictions or severed ties with Claude. Alibaba has not released an official statement regarding the full scope of these new restrictions.