The White House on Thursday charged that China is systematically siphoning off intellectual property from American artificial intelligence labs, warning the issue could complicate relations ahead of a planned meeting between U.S. and Chinese leaders next month.

In a memo released publicly, Michael Kratsios, who leads the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, said the administration has evidence pointing to organized efforts tied largely to China targeting advanced U.S. AI systems. “The US government has information indicating that foreign entities, principally based in China, are engaged in deliberate, industrial-scale campaigns to distil US frontier AI systems,” he wrote in the document, which was first reported by the Financial Times.

He further described the methods allegedly used in these operations, including the deployment of large numbers of fake accounts and technical workarounds designed to bypass safeguards. “Leveraging tens of thousands of proxy accounts to evade detection and using jailbreaking techniques to expose proprietary information, these coordinated campaigns systematically extract capabilities from American AI models, exploiting American expertise and innovation,” he added.

Responding to the accusations, the Chinese Embassy in Washington rejected the claims, calling them unfounded. It said it opposes “the baseless allegations,” and emphasized that Beijing “attaches great importance to the protection of intellectual property rights.”

The timing of the memo is significant, coming just weeks before President Donald Trump is expected to travel to Beijing for talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping. The allegations threaten to heighten friction in an already tense technological rivalry between the two countries, which had seen some easing after an agreement reached last October.

The developments also cast uncertainty over whether the U.S. will proceed with allowing advanced AI chips made by Nvidia to be exported to China. While the Trump administration approved such sales earlier this year under certain restrictions, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick indicated on Wednesday that shipments have yet to begin.

The memo also highlights the concept of “distillation,” a technique in which smaller AI systems are trained by drawing on the outputs of larger, more advanced models, often to reduce development costs.

Addressed to federal agencies, the document states that the administration intends to brief American AI firms about the alleged activities and consider further steps in response. It adds that officials will “explore a range of measures to hold foreign actors accountable” for the campaigns.