US Data Brokers Sold ~$500M in RL Training Environments to Chinese AI Labs
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On November 11, 2026, ChinaTalk published an investigative report stating that at least nine US data companies, including Mercor, Surge AI, AfterQuery, and Turing, sold about $500 million in training data to Chinese AI labs, including reinforcement learning (RL) environments for coding, financial analysis, and other tasks. The report noted that these RL training environments were provided by US data brokers and used by Chinese AI labs for model training, with total transactions amounting to roughly $500 million. The story remains at the investigative reporting stage, with no official response from the companies and Chinese AI labs involved, and no follow-up reports on regulatory action.
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- The DecoderUS data brokers are selling half a billion dollars in RL training environments to Chinese AI labs
A ChinaTalk investigation says at least nine US data companies, including Mercor, Surge AI, AfterQuery and Turing, have sold about $500 million in training data to Chinese AI labs, including reinforcement learning (RL) environments for tasks such as coding and financial analysis.
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