China-nexus adversaries attacked the technology sector more than any other industry over the past year, stealing artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities and intellectual property (IP) that Beijing cannot build fast enough on its own, CrowdStrike said.
The cybersecurity firm tracked activity from April 2025 to March 2026, linking it to Beijing’s drive for technological self-sufficiency and its stated goal of global AI leadership by 2030.
Why China Targets the Technology Sector
Technology firms are where the most valuable AI development now sits. That concentration has pushed the sector to the top of attackers’ target lists. CrowdStrike attributed more than 58% of state-sponsored targeted intrusions against tech to China-nexus groups.
AI capabilities rank as the highest-value intelligence collection target. Beijing can apply those capabilities to military modernization, economic growth, and intelligence gathering.
“Technology entities in general serve as a strategic target for China-nexus adversaries because access to such entities provides high-value intelligence collection as well as access to downstream customer environments that can enable potential supply chain compromises,” the report read.
Several named groups drove the campaigns, including MURKY PANDA, MUSTANG PANDA, OVERCAST PANDA, SUNRISE PANDA, and WARP PANDA. MURKY PANDA’s password-spraying operation alone hit more than 340 US-based entities.
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The AI Race Driving the Espionage
CrowdStrike frames the espionage as industrial policy aimed at closing China’s AI innovation gap. Adam Meyers, who heads counter-adversary operations at CrowdStrike, explained that each leap in AI capability rewards the developer with an advantage and hands intruders a new way in.
“China runs cyberespionage as an industrial policy to try to close the AI innovation gap, demonstrating that AI capabilities are the prize adversaries are after. Whether you’re building AI or adopting it, security has to be built in from the start,” Meyers said.
The firm expects China to keep prioritizing technology entities for at least 12 months. It cited US-China decoupling, sanctions enforcement, and economic espionage as the main drivers.
The findings sharpen a wider debate over the US lead in AI. Anthropic has argued that Washington could lock in a 12 to 24-month advantage over China through curbs on chip smuggling, offshore data centers, and model distillation.
Therefore, the coming year will test whether export controls and security investments can protect that edge, even as adversaries target the tools used to build AI itself.
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