DeepSeek and Moonshot reportedly trained their newest models on GPT-6 Astra
DeepSeek and Moonshot AI relied heavily on outputs from OpenAI's GPT-6 Astra to train the models they released this month, The Information reported Wednesday, citing people with direct knowledge. The models named are DeepSeek's V4.1-Flash 1017, released October 17th, and Moonshot's Kimi K3.1 Pro, released last week. OpenAI, DeepSeek and Moonshot did not immediately respond to Reuters.
The technique is : train a smaller or cheaper model on a stronger model's answers and inherit much of its skill for a fraction of the compute. It breaks OpenAI's terms of use when done through its . OpenAI said on September 30th that it had tied part of a distillation campaign running since July to people associated with Moonshot and blocked accounts; Anthropic has made similar accusations against both labs since February.
The load-bearing claim is the word "heavily." If it holds, the cheapest frontier-adjacent models in the world are priced off a lab that does not collect for them, and the gap between American and Chinese models is narrower in capability than it is in independence. The reporting rests on unnamed sources and no technical evidence has been published. SourcesBBB
Sources
- BOpenAI's Astra model becomes top distillation target for China's AI labs (The Information)theinformation.com
- BDeepSeek and Moonshot AI are reportedly using GPT-6 Astra for training (Techzine)techzine.eu
- BDeepSeek, Moonshot accused of distilling OpenAI's Astra (Digitimes)digitimes.com
This story ran in the Morning Brief of October 29th 2026.