Written question asked by Ben Spencer (Conservative) on Thursday, 10 September 2026, in the House of Commons. It was due for an answer on Tuesday, 15 September 2026 (named day). It was answered by Kanishka Narayan (Labour) on Friday, 25 September 2026 on behalf of the Cabinet Office.

Artificial Intelligence: China

Question: To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what information her Department holds on the distillation of UK AI models by China.

Answer: Distillation is the practice of training a "student" model to reproduce the capabilities or characteristics of a more capable "teacher" model. Developers commonly distill their own models to produce smaller, cheaper versions, and some models are released under licences that expressly permit others, external to their organisation, to do so. Distillation can also be carried out in breach of a model's licence or terms of service. The Department is not aware of any such instances of UK AI models being distilled.

Secondary information