ByteDance Vows to Avoid AI Distillation Despite Competitor Pressure

Zhang Yiming, the founder of ByteDance, announced that the company will not use AI distillation to advance its artificial intelligence capabilities. This process involves training models using outputs from advanced frontier models developed by other companies. Zhang stated that this policy will remain in place even if it causes ByteDance to fall behind its competitors.

The decision is partly attributed to the complex ownership relationship between ByteDance's subsidiary, TikTok, and the United States government. While other Chinese firms have faced accusations of this practice, ByteDance has not been accused of distilling external models.

This pledge occurs during an intensifying AI race in China. Anthropic has accused firms such as Alibaba, DeepSeek, and Moonshot AI of distilling its Claude models. Specifically, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy alleges that Moonshot AI built its Kimi K3 model using distilled models and restricted NVIDIA servers located in Thailand to evade detection.