Chinese tech giant Alibaba has banned its employees from using Anthropic's Claude Code, the company's AI coding assistant, according to multiple news outlets citing a source familiar with the matter. Reuters reported the ban under the headline "Alibaba to ban employees from using Anthropic's coding tool."
The restriction goes beyond a single product. According to The Information, whose reporting was highlighted by Techmeme, Alibaba has also asked staff to remove all Claude models from their work computers, citing security concerns.
Several outlets, including Yahoo Finance and Crypto News, framed the decision around "alleged backdoor risks" — the concern that software could contain a hidden route for unauthorized access. Techzine Global reported that Alibaba is accusing Anthropic of a backdoor, which the outlet called "a world turned upside down."
The move lands amid rising friction between Anthropic and Chinese firms. According to the Financial Times, Anthropic is moving to close loopholes that allow Chinese companies to access Claude. CNBC-TV18 reported that Alibaba's ban follows Anthropic's own accusations of illicit AI model extraction, framing the standoff as a response to theft claims.
It is important to note that, per the sources, the specific backdoor risk is described as "alleged," and much of the reporting rests on a single unnamed source. Anthropic's detailed response is not established in these items.
Why it matters: one of China's largest technology companies is walling itself off from a leading American AI tool over trust and security, a sign that AI software is becoming another front in the widening technological divide between the US and China.