The stance separates ByteDance from the covert copying the White House accuses Moonshot AI of using to build Kimi K3. The founder of ByteDance, Zhang Yiming, has said distillation will not be used to train the company’s AI models. This differentiates the company from other Chinese AI labs that have been accused of using the distillation technique. This comes as US officials have accused Chinese labs of using the technique to bridge the gap with American AI models. ByteDance also owns Seedance, a profitable and performance-leading video model, and a rare feat amongst Chinese AI products.