Source : INDIA TODAY NEWS
The US government has lifted restrictions on global access to Anthropic’s advanced AI models, Claude Mythos 5 and Claude Fable 5, allowing the company to restore availability outside the United States. While Anthropic says the decision followed discussions with US authorities and the introduction of additional safety measures, Zoho founder Sridhar Vembu believes another factor played an important role. According to him, growing competition from Chinese open-source AI models may have pushed the US to ease restrictions in order to protect the global market position of American AI companies.
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Sharing his views on X, Vembu argued that the return of Anthropic’s models to international users signals that Chinese AI development is now being taken seriously.
“Anthropic’s latest models available worldwide. In other words, Chinese open source models posed a serious enough threat to market share,” he wrote.
His comments come shortly after Anthropic confirmed that Claude Fable 5 would once again be available globally after what it described as “a series of productive conversations” with the US government.
Anthropic restores access after US removes export controls
Anthropic said the US Department of Commerce has removed the export controls that had temporarily blocked foreign access to Claude Fable 5 and Mythos 5. The company said global rollout would resume from the following day, although some coding and debugging requests may temporarily be handled by its older Opus 4.8 model while new security systems are refined.
The company also announced that it has deployed a new set of AI classifiers designed to identify and block cybersecurity-related misuse. Anthropic said these systems will continue to improve over the coming weeks to reduce false positives while ensuring legitimate users are not unnecessarily affected.
In addition, the company revealed that it is working with Amazon, Microsoft, Google and other partners on a common framework for evaluating AI jailbreaks and determining how developers should respond to such security incidents. Anthropic also plans to expand its cooperation with the US government through pre-release testing of future models, information sharing on misuse, and joint AI safety research.
The restrictions were introduced last month after the administration of US President Donald Trump ordered Anthropic to prevent foreign nationals, including some of its own employees, from accessing the company’s most advanced models. At the time, Anthropic said it had not been given a detailed explanation beyond national security concerns, though it believed officials were worried about possible security vulnerabilities in Fable 5.
Vembu says competition benefits customers and AI innovation
While Anthropic has credited discussions with US authorities and stronger safeguards for the policy reversal, Vembu believes competitive pressure also influenced the outcome. According to him, strong alternatives from China make it harder for American AI companies to limit international access without risking their global market share.
He connected the situation with his own experience in the enterprise software market. Vembu recalled a recent conversation with an Indian customer who was facing a major price increase during a Microsoft Office licence renewal. According to Vembu, the customer told Microsoft that they were considering switching to Zoho Office instead. He claimed Microsoft responded by cutting the renewal price by 90 percent.
Sharing the anecdote, Vembu said, “A big Microsoft Office license renewal came up and they hiked the price drastically. We told them we are looking at the Zoho office suite and they dropped the price by 90%.” He used the example to argue that competition ultimately benefits customers by forcing dominant companies to become more competitive on pricing and services. Referring to Microsoft’s legal history, Vembu also pointed out that the company had previously been found to hold a monopoly by a US federal court, saying competition remains essential in technology markets.
Looking beyond the current AI race, Vembu expressed optimism about India’s future in artificial intelligence. He said there is no reason to be pessimistic, as multiple research efforts are underway across academia and industry, while the cost of training AI models continues to decline.
He also revealed that he recently met members of the BharatGen team at IIT Bombay and said they are making “great progress.” Vembu added that he plans to share more about BharatGen in the near future, expressing confidence that India can eventually catch up in developing advanced AI models.
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SOURCE :- TIMES OF INDIA
