Asian AI startups launch rival models as Anthropic export ban continues

The US government's export ban on Anthropic's powerful AI models—Mythos and Fable 5—has created a vacuum that Asian AI startups are rushing to fill. On Wednesday, Chinese cybersecurity firm 360 reportedly unveiled Tulongfeng, a tool designed to automatically discover software vulnerabilities, which it claims is on par with Anthropic's Mythos. The company also launched Yitianzhen for automated cyber defense and incident response. 360 founder Zhou Hongyi called vulnerability-finding AI a national strategic asset and warned of the risk of “one-way transparency” if capabilities are unevenly distributed.

Earlier the same week, Tokyo-based Sakana AI launched Fugu, a frontier AI model named after the Japanese word for blowfish. Unlike traditional models, Fugu is designed for agentic orchestration, meaning it can coordinate access to multiple AI models through their APIs. Co-founder David Ha positioned it as a hedge against the concentration of power in US models, noting that access to top models can disappear overnight. While Sakana says the timing is coincidental, its marketing openly touts “delivering frontier capability without the risk of export controls.” Co-founder Ren Ito urged the US to preserve AI access for allies, arguing that AI should be developed together, not hoarded. The moves come as Anthropic's run-rate revenue crossed $47 billion in May 2026, though the impact of losing Asian enterprise customers remains unclear.