On Wednesday, Chinese cybersecurity firm 360 reportedly unveiled Tulongfeng, an AI tool it says can go head-to-head with Anthropic's Mythos. That's 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 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 “stands shoulder-to-shoulder with leading models like Anthropic's Fable 5 and Mythos Preview.” It is also designed for agents, with an ability to orchestrate access to other models though their APIs.

Export ban creates vacuum

The two new Asian model products come as the U.S. government's ban drags on. It’s order that prevents Anthropic from global access to Mythos and Fable occurred two weeks ago. The ban, issued under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, prohibits the export of these models to any entity outside the United States, citing national security concerns over the potential misuse of frontier AI capabilities in intelligence gathering and autonomous cyber operations.

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. But the sudden cutoff has sent shockwaves through the region, where many companies and government agencies had integrated Anthropic's models into critical infrastructure and security systems.

A spokesperson at Sakana AI told TechCrunch that the release of its new model was “entirely coincidental,” yet that hasn’t stopped it from capitalizing on the moment. Its website advertises “delivering frontier capability without the risk of export controls.”

“Sakana Fugu is something we have been building since last year — 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,” the spokesperson said about launching during the Mythos/Fable export ban.

Sakana AI: A Japanese alternative

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. The company has raised over $300 million to date, with backing from major Japanese financial institutions and international venture capital firms.

While the company is targeting Fugu at Japanese businesses and government agencies looking to reduce their exposure to tightening export controls, it isn’t yet proclaiming a lasting shift away from U.S. AI in Asia. “U.S. models remain important to Asia,” 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. “We’d characterize the current moment in those terms rather than as a permanent realignment toward any one set of players.”

Sakana co-founder Ren Ito elaborated on that view in an op-ed published in Project Syndicate last week. He urged the US federal government to consider that its “first priority should be to preserve access” for America’s closest allies, and argued that “AI should not become a technology that is hoarded; it should be one that is developed together.”

David Ha, co-founder and CEO of Sakana, described Fugu as more than just a land grab during a vulnerable moment for US competitors. It is designed to coordinate agent usage among many models. “Orchestration Models are the next frontier, beyond bigger models,” 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. “Access to top models can disappear overnight,” he wrote. “Collective intelligence is the practical hedge against this concentration of power.”

China’s 360 takes a more assertive stance

While Tokyo-based Sakana positioned Fugu as a hedge strategy, a way to preserve access to frontier AI, not replace it, China’s 360 wasn’t hedging. 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. The product launch, however, came with a message. According to Reuters, 360’s founder Zhou Hongyi described vulnerability-finding AI as a national strategic asset, and flagged what he called the risk of “one-way transparency”, a situation in which some actors could access advanced vulnerability-detection capabilities while others could not.

Zhou’s rhetoric reflects a broader strategic calculus in Beijing: as the US tightens export controls on advanced AI, China sees an opportunity to develop its own sovereign capabilities. 360, a company with deep ties to Chinese intelligence and cybersecurity apparatus, is well-positioned to serve state and enterprise clients who cannot risk dependency on American models.

Tulongfeng is said to outperform existing open-source vulnerability scanners by a significant margin, using a novel architecture that combines large language model reasoning with specialized vulnerability databases. The tool can autonomously probe software systems, identify zero-day vulnerabilities, and even propose patches without human intervention. Yitianzhen, meanwhile, acts as an autonomous cyber defense coordinator, capable of orchestrating incident response across multiple security tools in real time.

Broader implications for the AI landscape

The two launches highlight a growing schism in the global AI ecosystem. The US has long been the undisputed leader in frontier AI development, but export controls are prompting other nations to invest heavily in domestic alternatives. Japan, a key US ally, is taking a more measured approach than China, but the underlying motivation is similar: reducing reliance on a single geopolitical actor for critical technology infrastructure.

Anthropic had built a massive customer base in Asia, particularly among financial services, healthcare, and cybersecurity firms. With the export ban, many of these customers are now scrambling to find replacements that offer comparable capabilities. Sakana’s Fugu and 360’s Tulongfeng are early entrants, but more are likely to follow. In recent weeks, sources indicate that several Indian and South Korean AI labs are accelerating their own frontier model development, racing to fill the gap left by Anthropic’s withdrawal.

The timing is also significant given the broader trade tensions between the US and China. The export ban on Anthropic’s models is part of a larger pattern of technology restrictions that include semiconductor export controls, cloud computing limitations, and visa restrictions on AI researchers. These measures are intended to slow China’s progress in advanced technologies, but they also create friction with US allies who rely on American AI tools.

Sakana’s Ren Ito, speaking at the G7 summit, warned that “overly broad export controls could fragment the global AI ecosystem in ways that harm innovation and security for all”. He called for a “coalition of like-minded democracies” to establish shared standards for AI governance, rather than unilateral restrictions.

For now, Asian customers face a complex calculus. They can continue using existing Anthropic models under legacy agreements, but cannot access the latest versions. Or they can migrate to regional alternatives that may offer comparable performance with fewer geopolitical risks. The Japanese government has already signaled its intent to support domestic AI champions through tax incentives and procurement preferences. Similarly, Chinese state-owned enterprises are under pressure to adopt “indigenous” AI solutions.

The wave of new model launches is reshaping the competitive landscape. Sakana’s Fugu is notable not just for its performance, but for its architecture as an “orchestration model” that can coordinate multiple smaller models. This approach aligns with a growing trend in AI research toward compound AI systems rather than monolithic models. By distributing tasks across specialized models, Fugu can achieve frontier-level results while maintaining flexibility and reducing dependence on any single provider.

360’s Tulongfeng takes a different tack, focusing narrowly on cybersecurity. This vertical specialization may give it advantages in speed and accuracy compared to general-purpose models like Mythos, though it lacks Mythos’s broader reasoning capabilities. Both companies are betting that customers value local control and regulatory compliance over access to the absolute best general-purpose model.

Anthropic, for its part, has not publicly commented on the Asian launches. The company is reportedly lobbying the Trump Administration to narrow the scope of the export ban, arguing that it is hurting American competitiveness without materially enhancing national security. Some administration officials have expressed openness to a “trusted ally” exemption, but no concrete policy changes have been announced.

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. 360 did not respond to a request for comment. The long-term implications remain uncertain, but one thing is clear: the era of a single global AI leader is giving way to a more multipolar landscape.

Source:TechCrunch News