People searching proposed federal rules and public comments on the US Federal Register could use an optional artificial intelligence search feature on Wednesday. The tool used Qwen, an open-weight AI model from Alibaba, before disappearing from the government website later that day.
The Federal Register is run by the National Archives and serves as a daily publication for newly proposed and final federal regulations. Its website also provides public access to comments. Screenshots and an archived version of the site's source code reviewed by Reuters confirmed that the Qwen search tool had been present.
The feature was removed around the time social media posts began highlighting it. Reuters could not establish when it had first been deployed, how long it had been available, or who approved its use. The National Archives and the White House did not respond to requests for comment.
The episode comes during escalating US-China competition over artificial intelligence development. Last week, the FBI accused Alibaba of “maliciously” copying models made by Anthropic in building its own AI tools. US officials have said Chinese AI companies were engaged in “malicious” copying of US technology on an “industrial scale.”
Alibaba has rejected the allegations. A spokesperson for the Chinese Embassy in Washington described the copying claims as “unfounded”. The FBI declined to comment on Thursday.
The Federal Register's use of Qwen appears to have involved public material rather than classified or sensitive government information. Anupam Chander, a Georgetown law professor, said the arrangement did not appear to create an immediate cybersecurity risk because the website's content is already public.
Mark Warner, the vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said the central issue was whether any US data crossed the government's security boundary and was processed on systems controlled by Alibaba. The available information does not establish where user queries were handled or whether any information was processed on Alibaba-controlled servers outside the US.
Daniel Castro, president of the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, said it was absurd for US government agencies to choose Chinese AI models while the US and China were in fierce competition to build leading AI models. Questions also remain over any vetting conducted before the tool went live, whether National Archives leadership authorised it, and whether it formed part of a wider government procurement or pilot programme.
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