Chinese AI models used to write code may be creating a hidden security risk for U.S. companies, federal officials and government contractors, per a new report published by a major defense contractor specializing in cyber security.

Booz Allen published a report in late May warning the federal government, private software developers and workers in critical industries that the presence of code written by popular Chinese AI models within the supply chain may be making the United States more vulnerable to bad faith actors. These vulnerabilities aren’t simple backdoors, Booz Allen reports, but rather come in the form of Chinese large language models producing lower-quality, and thus easier to breach, code when they believe they are being prompted by an American.

Chinese models are generally cheaper than their Western counterparts and work well enough to keep companies interested, a dynamic that has led to increased adoption in the United States and put some policymakers and national security experts on edge.

«I’d say there’s an 80% chance they’re using a Chinese open-source model,» Martin Casado, a general partner at the major venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, said in November 2025 when asked about their prevalence among start ups. Major U.S. firms such as Meta, Airbnb and Perplexity are also reportedly using Chinese models.

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«The first link in the software supply chain is no longer the code. It’s the AI models behind it,» the Booz Allen report reads. «As U.S. developers increasingly rely on AI to generate, debug, and secure code, we must confront a fundamental question: can the AI models writing and powering our nation’s code be trusted?»

In an attempt to answer this question, Booz Allen compared four of the most widely used Chinese models — Kimi, Qwen, MiniMax and DeepSeek — against Anthropic’s Claude to test the security of the code they produced. The firms behind the four Chinese models did not respond to requests for comment when reached by Fox News Digital.

Qwen and MiniMax both produced code with significantly more vulnerabilities, increases of 130% and 20%, respectively, when they believed they were doing work for U.S. government employees as compared to a general prompt. DeepSeek, meanwhile, saw an increase of just 5% while Kimi produced code of a similar quality.

This means a government contractor relying on one of these models could unknowingly introduce coding flaws that make databases, applications or internal systems easier for hackers to exploit, potentially exposing sensitive American information.

The findings have drawn comparisons to so-called «sleeper agent» behavior where AI models appear to operate normally until exposed to a specific trigger that causes them to produce lower quality, or even deliberately insecure, outputs.

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Experts interviewed by Fox News Digital expressed a range of opinions on Booz Allen’s findings.

«While the raised risk categories are understandable, the report’s stronger claims are not fully supported as presented,» Lukasz Olejnik, a technology consultant who works as a senior research fellow at King’s College London, told Fox News Digital. «The report underplays the complexity of the issue.»

If Booz Allen’s report were accurate, and if code written by Chinese models had made its way into the American supply chain, it would make it easier for hackers to get their hands on data that could imperil national security or infringe on the privacy of everyday Americans.

Olejnik argued that the prompting used by Booz Allen was unnatural, saying that the firm’s methodology may have included «unnecessary political or institutional keyword triggers,» such as explicitly prompting models to believe a user is working for the FBI, that «may change outputs.» It is unlikely, he says, that an actual government agent would prompt the model in such a way.

Booz Allen claims that «testing model behaviors by introducing specific context is a best practice in both defensive and offensive evaluations.»

«I use various open-source models daily, including U.S. and Chinese,» the researcher, who holds a computer science Ph.D. from Inria, one of the world’s leading research institutions in the field, said. «Chinese models are so useful precisely because they are performant and freely available. Prohibiting open source models is not a good idea; it would stifle AI innovation and national security … The best approach to go beyond them is to encourage U.S. and EU companies to release their own high-capability open-weight models.»

Open source models made their underlying code directly viewable by users, allowing for security audits and edits, though even some open source programs harbor hidden vulnerabilities inserted by malicious actors.

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Pages from the Anthropic website and the company’s logos are displayed on a computer screen in New York on Feb. 26, 2026. (Patrick Sison/AP Photo)

While Olejnik agreed that «model outputs can shift under variety of prompts,» he added that «insufficient evidence has been posted to verify the causal claims or generalize them to Chinese LLMs as a class.»

Lenart Heim, an independent researcher specializing in AI and semiconductors, was more open to Booz Allen’s findings.

«It seems like a credible study, and I don’t find the overall findings incredibly surprising,» the researcher told Fox News Digital.

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The flag of China is flown behind a pair of surveillance cameras outside the Central Government Offices. (Roy Liu/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

Heim, who holds a master’s in computer engineering from the prestigious ETH Zurich and was until recently a top AI researcher at the RAND Corporation, pointed to a similar study published by CrowdStrike in 2025, which found that politically sensitive trigger words caused DeepSeek to produce up to 50% more insecure code.

«The extreme version of what we’re worried about here is what researchers call ‘sleeper agents,’» Heim continued. «There’s an existing paper from Anthropic that demonstrates you can train models to behave normally until a specific trigger condition is met — say, a particular year or context — at which point they start writing insecure code.»

In the Booz Allen study, he explained, identifying oneself as a U.S. government agent was presented as such a trigger. Heim, however, said that he found it «pretty implausible that the Chinese developers intentionally implemented sleeper agents with these specific triggers,» suggesting that the increased code insecurity was a side effect of broader «CCP-aligned fine-tuning» and that «the security differential they found is probably not that large in practice.»

AI applications Claude, ChatGPT, and Gemini are shown in this image. The photo was taken by Samuel Boivin and provided by NurPhoto via Getty Images. (Samuel Boivin/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

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«It is certainly possible to implement sleeper agents in these models for specific situations to write insecure code,» he went on. «You might think: ‘Well, I won’t tell the model I’m in the US government — I’ll just ask it to write code.’ But as we move toward more agentic use, there will be lots of contextual information automatically fed to the model. You might give it an existing codebase, and that codebase often has a license header at the top that reveals which company or government agency it belongs to. That context could activate degraded behavior.»

A source at Booz Allen told Fox News Digital that the authors of the report defined «vulnerabilities» as «code that can be exploited by an attacker» to allow for «unauthorized access, data theft, system disruption, or control of the affected software.» The report looked at common security flaws such as «hardcoded passwords, SQL injection risks, missing security tokens, outdated encryption and disabled security checks.»

Booz Allen’s analysts used both manual verification and automated checks to quantify the number of vulnerabilities in programs produced by each model.

A representative for Booz Allen told Fox News Digital that their team accessed the Chinese models online rather than using downloading them directly to their machines and running them locally. Heim said that Chinese models accessed in this way may be more prone to bias.

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Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., arrives for a vote in the U.S. Capitol on April 30, 2025, stating the war with Iran will continue for weeks as the U.S. limits their offensive capabilities. (Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)

The report also found that Chinese LLMs refused to perform tasks that could conflict with the interests of the Chinese government at significantly higher rates than Claude. Similar tests performed by others have netted similar results.

«Many Chinese LLMs learn from data shaped by China’s internet and Chinese government information controls,» the report notes. «Chinese law requires all AI models, training outputs, and data to reflect ‘Core Socialist Values.’»

Booz Allen recommended that the United States government take action to ban Chinese models for use on government or infrastructure work and recommended that contractors involved in such sectors, as well as the tech community generally, proactively work to remove code generated by such models from their supply chains. 

«A lower-cost model may look attractive upfront, especially for startups or cost-constrained engineering teams,» the report reads. «But that same model can become more expensive over time if it generates vulnerable code, creates uncertainty around data handling, or introduces behavior that standard enterprise controls do not easily catch.»

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Booz Allen’s point of view has some sympathizers on Capitol Hill.

«American companies shouldn’t build applications and write code with Chinese models, which introduce more cyber vulnerabilities,» Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., told Fox News Digital when presented with Booz Allen’s report. «And the federal government should certainly not buy software from companies using Chinese coding tools.»

La PNC informó que agentes de la SGAIA localizaron, erradicaron e incineraron 68.160 matas de marihuana en Las Cruces, Petén, durante un operativo realizado el 20 de junio en una zona montañosa de difícil acceso, una acción que las autoridades valoraron en Q34,08 millones (USD 4,463,278.60) y que se enmarca en la ofensiva del Estado contra los cultivos ilícitos en el norte de Guatemala.

El golpe se suma a otros operativos recientes en el mismo departamento. Según la Agencia Guatemalteca de Noticias, el 6 de junio fueron destruidas más de 115.416 plantas en el caserío Ixmuconé, Petén, con un avalúo superior a Q57,7 millones.

La operación más reciente fue ejecutada por la Subdirección General de Análisis e Información Antinarcótica de la Policía Nacional Civil tras tareas de reconocimiento y búsqueda en áreas remotas del departamento. Después del hallazgo, los agentes arrancaron e incineraron las plantaciones conforme a los protocolos establecidos.

Las autoridades calcularon que el cultivo destruido tenía un valor aproximado de 34 millones 80 mil quetzales. La PNC sostuvo que la destrucción representa un golpe a las estructuras dedicadas a la producción y comercialización de drogas.

El municipio de Las Cruces se ha convertido en uno de los puntos más sensibles para este tipo de operaciones por sus extensas áreas montañosas, su difícil acceso y su cercanía fronteriza. De acuerdo con la información oficial incluida en el reporte, Petén es hoy el principal foco de localización de sembradíos clandestinos de marihuana en Guatemala.

En mayo de 2026, en el caserío Flor de la Esperanza, también en Petén, las fuerzas de seguridad localizaron e incineraron 87,800 plantas distribuidas en tres campos de cultivo, con un avalúo de Q43,9 millones. Ese mismo mes, en el caserío Ixcoch, agentes de la SGAIA erradicaron y quemaron 59.904 matas dentro del plan de desarticulación de bandas del crimen organizado.

La respuesta a la pregunta central del operativo es concreta: la plantación destruida estaba compuesta por 68,160 matas de marihuana y fue encontrada en un sector montañoso del municipio de Las Cruces, Petén. La intervención terminó con la erradicación total y la quema en el lugar para impedir su traslado y su comercialización.

Según el Ministerio de Gobernación, la destrucción de estos cultivos forma parte de una estrategia permanente para impedir que la droga llegue a los mercados ilícitos de Guatemala y otros países de la región. La publicación oficial añadió que los operativos continúan en distintos puntos del país, sobre todo en áreas rurales y montañosas donde grupos criminales buscan establecer cultivos clandestinos.

El marco legal que rige estas acciones es la Ley Contra la Narcoactividad, Decreto 48-92, que prohíbe de forma estricta la siembra, el cultivo y la cosecha de marihuana en territorio guatemalteco. El protocolo establece que, tras localizar un sembradío, el personal antinarcótico realiza el conteo, toma muestras para pruebas de campo en coordinación con jueces fiscales y luego arranca e incinera la totalidad de la plantación en el mismo terreno.

Los registros oficiales citados por el medio también señalan que en 2025 Guatemala superó la erradicación histórica de 2,6 millones de matas de marihuana. Ese balance anual incluyó además la destrucción de miles de kilos de marihuana procesada y de plantaciones de otras sustancias ilícitas, como amapola y hoja de coca.

Fuera de Petén, los reportes oficiales ubican otros focos de incautación en San Marcos, en localidades como Tajumulco y Sipacapa, y en Totonicapán, donde se han desmantelado plantaciones menores en municipios como Momostenango.

CHICAGO — Opening weekend visitors at the Barack Obama Presidential Center called the 44th president’s legacy an example of unifying, scandal-free «Black excellence,» while they lamented what they view as a dark turn for the U.S. under President Donald Trump.

«The community is great, we’re just kind of glad it’s here,» Lauren Tillman, who lives about 40 minutes outside of Chicago, told Fox News Digital. «We needed something like this. Chicago looks like a certain place to certain people who are not from the area… so I just think this brought everybody together, like, ‘oh there’s something for the community,’ for Black people, and on Juneteenth, so I thought that was great, too.»

The presidential center’s opening weekend began with a star-studded private ceremony and concert on Thursday night, and the 19.3-acre campus opened to the public on Friday during the Juneteenth holiday, which celebrates the day Black slaves were declared free in 1865.

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«Just knowing that Chicago doesn’t always get the best rep, to know that we’ve had a Black president come from this place, and then to memorialize his legacy is just great,» said Ashley Woods, who joined Tillman at the opening.

«To know that [Obama] was going to try to do at least something for his people, that meant a lot to me and being here means a lot,» added Tillman.

«And I think, to piggyback off that, I think the legacy is Black excellence,» continued Woods. «Again, growing up in a place like Chicago, you don’t really think you can do much besides being a rapper or, you know, going into sports, but so see that somebody actually made it to the top per se, they were able to run the nation, there was very little scandal around him and his family, like it just shows you that we can be more than what America tells us we can be.»

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Lauren Tillman and Ashley Woods speak with Fox News Digital at the Barack Obama Presidential Center in Chicago on Friday. (Peter D’Abrosca/Fox News Digital)

Sheryl Rogers and Peggy Neely-Harris made the trip from St. Louis for the weekend’s festivities.

«What it means for African Americans [is] a coming together, a reckoning, a remembrance of the excellence that is within each one of us, particularly in African Americans and particularly at this time when our very existence is under attack,» Rogers told Fox News Digital.

Neely-Harris agreed, and said that the brand new presidential center is a symbol of hope and renewal, and that the center is a «light in this present darkness.»

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Sheryl Rogers and Peggy Neely Harris speak with Fox News Digital on the opening weekend of the Barack Obama Presidential Center in Chicago, Friday. (Peter D’Abrosca/Fox News Digital)

«[Obama] has left an excellent example of how you should live, what type of character you should have and the love of family and community,» Rogers continued. «You can see love just exudes from them, and I love to see love in action.»

«No scandal,» she added.

However, Obama did face some major scandals and controversies during his two terms in the White House.

Obama’s DOJ infamously seized records of Fox News’ phone lines, including a phone number that belonged to the parents of a reporter.

The seizure was approved after a warrant was granted by a judge, and in an affidavit seeking the warrant, an FBI agent called reporter James Rosen a likely criminal «co-conspirator» in a violation of the Espionage Act.

Obama also faced government weaponization claims when his IRS allegedly slow-rolled the tax-exempt nonprofit approval of grassroots conservative organizations that set out to oppose his agenda.

Groups with words such as «Tea Party» or «Patriot» in their names were allegedly hindered from forming for months and years.

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Barack Obama speaks during the dedication of the Barack Obama Presidential Center, Thursday, in Chicago. (Kent NISHIMURA / AFP via Getty Images)

Operation Fast and Furious was another chart-topping Obama scandal.

ATF agents intentionally allowed illegal straw purchases of weapons near the U.S. southern border with Mexico, in hopes that tracking the firearms would lead them directly to high-level cartel kingpins. But the Obama-era agency failed to monitor at least 2,000 of the weapons, which did in fact make their way into the hands of dangerous characters.

One of the weapons in the ill-fated sting was used to kill Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry in 2010.

When, in 2012, then-Attorney General Eric Holder was subpoenaed during a House Oversight Committee investigation into the matter, he refused to comply, disallowing the committee from seeing thousands of pages of records pertaining to the operation. He later became the first U.S. cabinet official to be held in contempt of Congress, but the Obama DOJ failed to prosecute him.

Obama ordered the extrajudicial drone strike killings of four terror-tied Americans in Yemen without due process.

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Valerie Reynolds speaks to Fox News Digital during the opening weekend of the Barack Obama Presidential Center in Chicago, Friday. (Peter D’Abrosca/Fox News Digital)

Twenty-six-year-old Chicago resident Valerie Reynolds told Fox News Digital she thinks the center will improve the image of the city’s South Side, which often finds itself in news headlines for violence and poverty.

«I think Barack Obama’s legacy is and will continue to be the inspiration of togetherness, of the power of what can be done and what can be created when we all come together,» she said. «It’s absolutely something that we are missing today. I’ve seen divisions in this country in ways that I’ve never seen before, and I was reminded of just how vast those divisions are being out here today, because it’s the first time I’ve felt this closeness since he ran for office in 2008.»

An emotional Kia Ware, a woman from Virginia, said the grand opening of the center was a sad reminder of the direction of the U.S. since Obama left office.

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Kia Ware speaks with Fox News Digital during the opening weekend of the Barack Obama Presidential Center in Chicago on Friday. (Peter D’Abrosca/Fox News Digital)

«It makes me sad because I was so proud of everything that was accomplished during that legacy in terms of, you know, fighting for vulnerable people and vulnerable lands and protection of so many things that are now being erased forever, and I feel like it’s setting us back,» she said.

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Ware added that Obama is still a «powerhouse» in the Democratic Party, and said that people who believe in his legacy want him to «step back in.»

«I guess it just means, like for me, I just am feeling very thankful that we have those eight years of history for putting women forward, putting minorities forward,» she said. «I felt like that unification, just seeing all people of different backgrounds and ages and generations here, I get that same feeling.»