Alibaba Reportedly Bans Employees from Using Claude Code, Asked to Switch to Qoder

JAKARTA - Alibaba is rumored to be banning its employees from using Claude Code, an AI-based programming tool owned by Anthropic. The ban is said to take effect on July 10.

Citing a report from TechCrunch, Sunday, July 5, the policy emerged amid Anthropic's efforts to close Chinese users' access to Claude. Anthropic had previously banned Chinese companies and foreign entities owned by Chinese companies from using its AI-powered models.

Claude Code is an AI-based programming tool that helps developers write, read, and improve code. In the technology industry, tools like this are increasingly used because they can speed up the work of software developers.

However, Claude's position in China is not simple. Anthropic is reportedly closing the gap that still allows Chinese users to access the service.

According to the latest post on Reddit, some of the efforts involved a version of Claude Code that is said to be able to identify Chinese users secretly. This claim was then responded to by Thariq Shihipar from Anthropic through a post on X.

Shihipar called the feature an experiment launched in March. The goal, he said, is to prevent the misuse of accounts by unofficial retailers and protect models from distillation practices.

Distillation is the practice of training an AI model with the output of another AI model. In the AI industry, this practice is a sensitive issue because it can involve the protection of technologies, data, and models that companies have developed.

"The team has implemented stronger preventive measures since then and in fact we have been intending to disable this for some time," said Shihipar.

Even so, Alibaba is reportedly taking its own steps. TechCrunch wrote, the Chinese technology company classified Claude Code as high-risk software.

Alibaba has also instructed its employees to use Qoder, the company's own programming tool, in place of Claude Code.

This case shows how AI tools for programming are now involved in the tug-of-war of access, security, and business interests. For Alibaba, Qoder gives internal options when Claude Code is classified as high-risk software.