A booming gray market of token resellers in China is providing local AI Cos. with access to US models including Anthropic’s Claude, reports The Information

Gray-market access routes of this kind are a recurring feature of export-control regimes: whenever advanced US technology is restricted for Chinese buyers, intermediary reselling channels have tended to emerge, and enforcement attention follows reporting of them. The historical sequence has been that press accounts of circumvention prompt questions for the model providers about their compliance posture, then scrutiny from the Commerce apparatus that administers the controls, and eventually tighter know-your-customer and API-access requirements. The distinction worth drawing is between access obtained through foreign subsidiaries and resold seats, which sits in a legal gray zone, and outright sanctions evasion, which carries direct liability; the headline as phrased sits closer to the former. For the named US providers the exposure is reputational and regulatory rather than revenue-negative, since gray-market demand has historically been read as evidence of product leadership in restricted markets. The follow-ons to note are any response from the companies on access controls, and whether Washington officials cite this kind of reporting in arguing for broader restrictions on model access or cloud compute.