U.S. government uses chinese AI model for federal regulations search

On September 18, 2026, Reuters reported that a U.S. government website has adopted an AI model from a Chinese company, providing users with a search tool for proposed federal regulations. The Federal Register website, operated by the National Archives, introduced a search feature powered by Alibaba's Qwen model. The tool was reportedly taken offline on Wednesday, as revealed by screenshots and archived source code. Social media platforms soon saw posts about the tool's deployment. AI experts stated that using the Chinese model on the Federal Register website does not pose a national security risk. The site publishes new proposed regulations daily and offers Qwen as a tool for reviewing public comments. Qwen is an open-weight model, allowing developers to download and modify it for specific uses, often at a lower cost than closed-source models from companies like Anthropic and OpenAI.