Probe Launched Into Chinese AI INFILTRATION Of U.S. Tech

U.S. tech giants are handing over customer data and innovation to Beijing-linked AI models, while socialist Senator Bernie Sanders hosts Chinese scientists and calls for “dialogue” instead of competition.

As American companies race to cut costs by plugging Chinese Communist Party-developed AI into everyday platforms used by millions, House Republicans are drawing a hard line on national security.

The joint investigation by the House Homeland Security Committee and the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party targets Airbnb and Anysphere—the parent company of the exploding AI coding tool Cursor—for their reliance on models from Alibaba and Moonshot AI.

? NOW: The House Homeland Security Committee just launched an investigation into CHINESE INFILTRATION of America's AI industry

And Sen. Bernie Sanders wants us to *COOPERATE* with the CCP, handing them wins, instead of competing

Traitor.

China is being accused to surging… pic.twitter.com/jTIJq39xZP

— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) May 1, 2026

Lawmakers say this isn’t harmless outsourcing. It’s a vector for espionage, intellectual property theft, and Beijing’s long-term plan to erode U.S. technological dominance.

The probe launched earlier this week when Chairmen Andrew Garbarino (R-NY) of Homeland Security and John Moolenaar (R-MI) of the China Select Committee sent formal letters demanding detailed answers from both CEOs of the companies by May 13. They also want key employees in for an in-person briefing.

The letters lay out a clear pattern: Chinese firms are running what the committees call a spying campaign to accelerate their own AI capabilities by exploiting American innovation.

Tactics include espionage, outright intellectual property theft, and unauthorized “model distillation”—sucking capabilities out of leading U.S. systems and repackaging them into new models stripped of safety guardrails.

Airbnb’s CEO Brian Chesky openly admitted last year that the company relies “a lot” on Alibaba’s Chinese-developed Qwen model for customer service, praising it as “fast and cheap.” That decision now sits at the center of the investigation. Airbnb has not responded to media requests for comment.

Cursor, one of the fastest-growing AI tools on the market, faces similar scrutiny. Its new Composer 2 model was reportedly built on an open-weight system from Moonshot AI—a Beijing firm backed by Alibaba. Lawmakers warn that the growing popularity of these tools risks embedding CCP-influenced code across the American economy, government systems, and even the defense industrial base.

Moolenaar put it plainly in the joint statement: “Airbnb and Anysphere’s decisions to build their products on Chinese Communist AI models threaten critical infrastructure Americans use every day. The AI models these companies use are trained by China’s censorship regime and introduce hidden vulnerabilities that put Americans’ data and businesses at risk.” Garbarino echoed the alarm, stressing that dependence on adversary technology weakens America’s edge in the global AI race.

Chinese AI usage in global workloads has exploded from 1 percent in late 2024 to 30 percent by the end of 2025. The committees point to documented cases of bias baked into these models—such as code that quietly pushes the “One China Principle” on Taiwan—and the very real danger that American users and businesses are feeding sensitive data straight into systems shaped by Beijing’s strategic objectives.

Yet at the exact moment Republicans are shining a light on this infiltration, Sen. Bernie Sanders is pushing the opposite direction. On the same day the letters went out, Sanders hosted a Capitol Hill panel featuring Chinese scientists from Tsinghua University and the Beijing Institute of AI Safety and Governance—both tied to CCP-linked institutions.

He urged “international cooperation” on AI regulation, warning of existential risks if the U.S. treats the technology as an arms race. “We need to cooperate. We need dialogue,” Sanders declared, framing competition with China as the real threat.

Conservatives were quick to call out the timing and the optics. Sanders has long advocated slowing America’s AI push in favor of global talks, even referencing pandemic cooperation as a model—despite China’s documented cover-up of COVID origins. Critics rightly note that “cooperation” with a regime actively stealing U.S. tech isn’t partnership; it’s surrender.

The contrast couldn’t be starker. One side is investigating how American innovation is being siphoned off to strengthen a strategic adversary. The other side wants to sit down at the table with that same adversary and hand over the playbook.

Companies chasing short-term profits by outsourcing core AI functions bear responsibility too. “Fast and cheap” looks a lot less attractive when it comes with hidden backdoors, censored outputs, and the long arm of the CCP reaching into U.S. customer data.

This investigation is a necessary first step in reclaiming control over technologies that will define the next century.

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