On Wednesday, Chinese cybersecurity firm 360 reportedly unveiled Tulongfeng, an AI tool it says can go head-to-head with Anthropic\u2019s Mythos. That\u2019s the cybersecurity-focused AI model that is reportedly so powerful, the Trump Administration has currently banned it and its more restricted version, Fable 5, from the hands of non-Americans.<\/p>\n
Earlier the same week Sakana AI, a Tokyo-based AI startup launched Fugu, a model named after the Japanese word for blowfish. The company says this frontier AI model \u201cstands shoulder-to-shoulder with leading models like Anthropic\u2019s Fable 5 and Mythos Preview.\u201d It is also designed for agents, with an ability to orchestrate access to other models though their APIs.<\/p>\n
The two new Asian model products come as the U.S. government\u2019s ban drags on. It\u2019s order that prevents Anthropic from global access to Mythos and Fable occurred two weeks ago. <\/p>\n
A spokesperson at Sakana AI told TechCrunch that release of its new model was \u201centirely coincidental,\u201d yet that hasn\u2019t stopped it from capitalizing on the moment. It\u2019s website advertises \u201cdelivering frontier capability without the risk of export controls.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSakana Fugu is something we have been building since last year \u2014 the research behind it was presented at ICLR this spring, and it reflects an approach that is central to how we deliver frontier-level value at Sakana AI. We were confident in the product on its own merits; the timing simply happened to coincide with a moment that brought it more attention than we expected,\u201d the spokesperson said about launching during the Mythos\/Fable export ban.<\/p>\n
Sakana, co-founded in 2023 by David Ha and Llion Jones, both Google alumni, and Ren Ito, a former executive at Mercari and Stability AI, makes affordable generative AI models that work well with small datasets and are optimized for the Japanese language and culture.<\/p>\n
While the company is targeting Fugu at Japanese businesses and government agencies looking to reduce their exposure to tightening export controls, it isn\u2019t yet proclaiming a lasting shift away from U.S. AI in Asia.<\/p>\n
\u201cU.S. models remain important to Asia,\u201d the spokesperson said, a view consistent with remarks co-founder Ren Ito made at the G7 summit in Evian last week, where AI access and export controls were one of the central topics. \u201cWe\u2019d characterize the current moment in those terms rather than as a permanent realignment toward any one set of players.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sakana co-founder Ren Ito elaborated on that view in an op-ed published in the Project Syndicate last week. He urged the US federal government, that consider that its \u201cfirst priority should be to preserve access,\u201d for America\u2019s closest allies, and argued that \u201cAI should not become a technology that is hoarded; it should be one that is developed together.\u201d<\/p>\n
David Ha, co-founder and CEO of Sakana, described Fugu as more than just a land grab during a vulnerable moment for a US competitors. It is designed to coordinate agent usage among many models.<\/p>\n
\u201cOrchestration Models are the next frontier, beyond bigger models,\u201d he wrote on X. Relying on a single provider for national infrastructure, he argued, is a risk the recent export controls made impossible to ignore. <\/p>\n
\u201cAccess to top models can disappear overnight,\u201d he wrote. \u201cCollective intelligence is the practical hedge against this concentration of power.\u201d<\/p>\n
While Tokyo-based Sakana positioned Fugu as a hedge strategy, a way to preserve access to frontier AI, not replace it, China\u2019s 360 wasn\u2019t hedging.<\/p>\n
The Chinese firm reportedly unveiled two AI security tools. Tulongfeng is designed to automatically discover software vulnerabilities, and Yitianzhen is built to automate cyber defence and incident response.<\/p>\n
The product launch, however, came with a message. According to Reuters, 360\u2019s founder Zhou Hongyi described vulnerability-finding AI as a national strategic asset, and flagged what he called the risk of \u201cone-way transparency\u201d, a situation in which some actors could access advanced vulnerability-detection capabilities while others could not.<\/p>\n
Anthropic had been on a historic growth trajectory. The US AI lab said its run-rate revenue crossed $47 billion in May 2026. How much of that depends on Asian enterprise customers is not publicly known. <\/p>\n
But in the weeks since the export order took effect, at least two companies, one in Tokyo, one in Beijing, have stepped into the space it left behind. Even if US companies could win back trust should this ban ever end, local alternatives, trained to better understand local language and nuance, are already filling the gap.<\/p>\n
360 did not respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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[analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/GettyImages-2278736523.jpeg?resize=1200,798″] On Wednesday, Chinese cybersecurity firm 360 reportedly unveiled Tulongfeng, an AI tool it says can go head-to-head with Anthropic\u2019s Mythos. That\u2019s the cybersecurity-focused AI model that is reportedly so powerful, the Trump Administration has currently banned it and its more restricted version, Fable 5, from the hands of non-Americans. Earlier the same […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[226,62],"class_list":["post-2016532","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-crawlmanager","tag-techcrunch-com"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2016532","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2016532"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2016532\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2016532"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2016532"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2016532"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}