Alibaba to Ban Claude Code

Alibaba is reportedly set to prohibit its employees from using Anthropic's Claude Code AI programming tool starting July 10, classifying it as high-risk software. Instead, employees have been instructed to adopt the company's in-house AI coding assistant, Qoder, as part of Alibaba's strategy to strengthen its proprietary AI ecosystem. The move comes amid growing competition between Chinese and American AI companies in the enterprise software market.

Meanwhile, Anthropic has already restricted Chinese companies and entities linked to them from accessing its AI models and tools. Reports suggest the company had tested additional mechanisms to detect unauthorized access and prevent misuse, although it later rolled back those measures after implementing stronger security protections. The AI race between the US and China continues to intensify, with Chinese firms launching competitive low-cost AI models while the US tightens regulations on access to advanced AI technologies.