Asian AI startups launch Mythos-like models amid Anthropic export ban

On Wednesday, Chinese cybersecurity firm 360 announced the launch of Tulongfeng, an AI tool it claims can compete directly with Anthropic’s Mythos. That model, focused on cybersecurity, is reportedly so advanced that the Trump Administration has barred it,along with its more restricted counterpart, Fable 5,from being accessed by non-Americans.

Earlier that same week, Tokyo-based startup Sakana AI introduced Fugu, a model named after the Japanese word for blowfish. The company asserts that this frontier AI model “stands shoulder-to-shoulder with leading models like Anthropic’s Fable 5 and Mythos Preview.” Designed for agents, Fugu can orchestrate access to other models through their APIs.

These two new Asian model releases come amid the ongoing U. S. government ban, which has prevented Anthropic from offering Mythos and Fable globally for two weeks now.

A Sakana AI spokesperson told TechCrunch that the timing of Fugu’s launch was “entirely coincidental,” though the company hasn’t hesitated to leverage the moment. Its website now promotes “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,” the spokesperson said. “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.”

Founded in 2023 by former Google researchers Ren Ito, Llion Jones, and David Ha, Sakana AI specializes in affordable generative AI models that perform well with small datasets and are optimized for Japanese language and culture.

Although the company is targeting Fugu at Japanese businesses and government agencies seeking to reduce their reliance on U. S. technology amid tightening export controls, it isn’t declaring a permanent shift away from American AI in Asia.

“U. S. models remain important to Asia,” the spokesperson said, echoing remarks co-founder Ren Ito made at the G7 summit in Evian last week, where AI access and export controls were key topics. “We’d characterize the current moment in those terms rather than as a permanent realignment toward any one set of players.”

In an op-ed published last week in Project Syndicate, Ito urged the U. S. federal government to “preserve access” for its closest allies, arguing 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 an opportunistic move during a vulnerable period for a U. S. competitor. The model is designed to coordinate agent usage across multiple systems.

“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 that recent export controls have made impossible to ignore.

“Access to top models can disappear overnight,” he added. “Collective intelligence is the practical hedge against this concentration of power.”

While Tokyo-based Sakana positioned Fugu as a hedging strategy,a way to maintain access to frontier AI rather than replace it,China’s 360 took a more direct approach.

The Chinese firm reportedly unveiled two AI security tools: Tulongfeng, designed to automatically discover software vulnerabilities, and Yitianzhen, built to automate cyber defense and incident response.

The product launch carried a clear message. According to Reuters, 360’s founder Zhou Hongyi described vulnerability-finding AI as a national strategic asset and warned of “one-way transparency,” a scenario where some actors could access advanced detection capabilities while others could not.

Anthropic had been on a historic growth trajectory, with the U. S. AI lab reporting a run-rate revenue of $47 billion in May 2026. How much of that depends on Asian enterprise customers remains unclear.

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 U. S. companies could regain trust should the ban ever end, local alternatives, trained to better understand regional language and nuance, are already filling the gap.

360 did not respond to a request for comment.