WASHINGTON \u2014 Top American AI companies are feeding Beijing\u2019s beast and the US military at the same time, a longtime China hawk is warning.<\/p>\n
Four major providers of data for AI models \u2014 which help collate, label and package the vast troves of info for Anthropic, Google, Meta, OpenAI and the Pentagon \u2014 are also quietly working for China\u2019s AI labs<\/a> on the side, according to a new report. <\/p>\n \u201cAmerica is in an AI race with the Chinese Communist Party,\u201d Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas) told The Post. <\/p>\n Multiple AI data companies are quietly selling information to Chinese AI labs. Hans Lucas\/AFP via Getty Images<\/p>\n \u201cWe cannot spend billions trying to protect our technological advantage while American companies package up our best human expertise and sell it to companies tied to the Chinese military.\u201d<\/p>\n None of the companies responded to The Post\u2019s requests for comment.<\/p>\n China\u2019s top six AI labs have dished out roughly $500 million a year on American data companies, according to a Forbes report<\/a>.<\/p>\n Four US-based AI data companies reported to have done business with Chinese AI labs are: SurgeAI, Mercor, AfterQuery, and Turing.<\/p>\n McCaul, the former chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said the companies must stop working for China if they want government contracts.<\/p>\n \u201cIf you want to do business with the US government, you should not also be helping a Pentagon-designated Chinese military company build better AI,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n AI requires vast amounts of data so that its models can fine-tune their pattern prediction capabilities. Depending on the type of AI, its training data requirements is often very specialized and hard to obtain.<\/p>\n President Trump is set to meet with Chinese leader Xi Jinping next month. Getty Images<\/p>\n The data needs to be accurate and labeled properly. Without proper data, tech companies won\u2019t be able to get their AI models to function properly<\/a>. <\/p>\n SurgeAI, which is generally seen as one of the top data labeling companies in the field, has done work with Chinese firm Tencent, according to Forbes.<\/p>\n SurgeAI has earned some small contracts with the Army<\/a> and Air Force<\/a>. But Tencent has been designated by the US as a Chinese military company.<\/p>\n Executives at Chinese firm Tencent, which works on AI, video games, and more, privately described relying on US firm Surge AI, the outlet reported.<\/p>\n Mercor, which reportedly locked down a US government contract last month, is also known to have done business with Tencent. Some 2% of the company\u2019s revenue came from China in the second quarter, a source told Forbes. The firm recruits and organizes experts for AI companies to lean on for training their chatbots.<\/p>\n AfterQuery, which curates data for AI development, reportedly gets $50 million in \u201crecurring revenue\u201d from China, including its dealings with Ant Group \u2014 the financial arm of Alibaba. <\/p>\n Lastly, Turing, which helps label and develop specialized training data, has done work with ByteDance, the parent company of TikTok in China.<\/p>\n The Pentagon has awarded contracts to several AI data companies that have worked with firms linked to the Chinese military. Getty Images<\/p>\n