Alibaba reportedly bans Claude Code use in offices starting July 10

Alibaba is reportedly telling employees they can no longer use Anthropic’s Claude Code in office environments starting July 10, in a move the company is said to justify on internal security grounds.

According to reporting published on July 3, the coding tool has been added to a restricted-software list inside Alibaba and described as high-risk software. The reports say employees are being directed to use Qoder instead.

Why Alibaba is tightening access

The reported restriction lands after a tense stretch in the public dispute between Anthropic and Alibaba. In late June, the Financial Times and The Wall Street Journal reported that Anthropic accused Alibaba of a large-scale effort to access Claude and extract model capabilities.

Those reports said Anthropic alleged that Alibaba-affiliated operators used nearly 25,000 fraudulent accounts and more than 28 million interactions with Claude. Anthropic’s concerns were framed as a major distillation campaign, according to the coverage.

The new reported Alibaba ban appears to reflect a separate internal response: limiting use of an external coding assistant in office environments because of security concerns.

What is known and what is not

The first public report found in the reviewed coverage came from the Times of India on July 3, citing Yicai. It said the restriction starts July 10 and applies to office use.

No direct public Alibaba statement or employee memo confirming the ban was found in the reviewed sources. It also remains unclear whether the restriction is limited to office networks, applies more broadly inside China, or extends to Alibaba employees elsewhere.

Still, the development fits a wider pattern of tightening controls around AI tools, cross-border access and software supply-chain risk as U.S.-China AI tensions continue to rise.