Anthropic says it disrupted the operation, which compiled ship transponder data, military photos, and satellite imagery to track American vessels

Anthropic said it detected unauthorized efforts by China-based AI labs including Alibaba and Moonshot AI to use its Claude models to help improve their own AI systems.

Anthropic said it identified and disrupted five cases in which its Claude AI models were used in ways that could support biological weapons development, highlighting the growing difficulty of distinguishing legitimate scientific research from potentially harmful activity.

The report also described Anthropic's efforts to prevent bad actors from using its models for research to create biological weapons.

Anthropic says multiple threat groups, including the financially motivated and state-sponsored espionage groups linked to Russia and China, tried to abuse its Claude AI model for malicious purposes.

Claude was developed by Anthropic, a San Francisco-based company founded in 2021 by former OpenAI employees focusing on AI safety and research. Dario Amodei, the co-founder and CEO of Anthropic, had served as vice president of research at OpenAI. His sister Daniela Amodei serves as Anthropic’s president.

Military and government actors across the Middle East — from Iran to Yemen to the United Arab Emirates — have used Anthropic's Claude AI model for war planning and influence campaigns.