Chinese company Qihoo 360 claims to have developed an AI cyber nuclear weapon

A blacklisted Chinese company claims to have developed a “cyber nuclear weapon” that could be used to hack Western companies and governments. Zhou Hongyi, the Chief Executive of cybersecurity company Qihoo 360, said it had built an AI system that matched the capabilities of Anthropic’s Claude Mythos, the most powerful US AI technology.

It comes after Five Eyes nations warned that enemies were just months away from being able to carry out devastating cyber attacks.

Qihoo has been blacklisted by the US government since 2020 over claims that it is linked to the Chinese military. Earlier this month, the Pentagon accused Qihoo of being a “military civil fusion contributor to the Chinese defence industrial base” tied to Beijing’s intelligence agencies.

The Chinese business previously said it rejected the accusations.

Zhou’s claims about Qihoo’s technology have not been verified, but experts say China will eventually be able to develop AI that can carry out sophisticated hacks.

Mythos, unveiled by Anthropic in April, was described as “reshaping cybersecurity” because of its ability to uncover thousands of previously unknown bugs in software and exploit them.

Anthropic initially withheld Mythos from the public over concerns it was too dangerous to release. It later offered it to a handful of business customers, while the National Security Agency, the US equivalent of GCHQ, trialled the AI to find flaws in classified government systems.

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However, Anthropic was forced to withdraw the AI entirely after the White House imposed export controls on the technology over fears hackers could bypass its safeguards and carry out attacks.

Mr Zhou, speaking at an internet security conference in China, said that Mythos was the “equivalent to a cyber nuclear weapon in the AI era” and a “strategic asset” to the US.

He said that Qihoo had developed its own system, called Tulongfeng, which he billed as a “Chinese version of Mythos, possessing similar vulnerability discovery capabilities.”

While not as powerful as Mythos, he said it could be paired with Qihoo’s other technologies resulting in a hacking tool equivalent to Anthropic’s system.

He compared the development of AI cyber systems to the nuclear arms race.

“Previously, nuclear weapons constituted strategic deterrence. In the future, vulnerability discovery capabilities may become the new strategic deterrent,” Zhou said.

“China’s cybersecurity industry must possess its own Mythos. This game-changing weapon of mass destruction cannot remain solely in the hands of others.”

He said Tulongfeng had discovered more than 3,000 vulnerabilities, several of which were deemed “high risk” by Chinese officials.

The cyber chiefs of the Five Eyes nations – the US, the UK, Canada, New Zealand and Australia – warned earlier this week that adversaries would soon be able to use AI to develop overwhelming attacks.

“The timeline is not years, it is months,” the joint warning said.

Alan Woodward, a cyber security expert at the University of Surrey, said it was inevitable that China would develop such systems.

“It might not be as good as Mythos, but what it does show is these things are going to come out anyway,” he said.

AI labs have also accused China of attempting to copy American chatbot systems, using so-called “distillation attacks” to leapfrog Silicon Valley in the AI race.

Anthropic accused Chinese tech giant Alibaba earlier this month of trying to syphon off its AI technology to improve its own chatbots.

In a letter to Congress, Anthropic claimed Alibaba had “brazenly” sent millions of queries to its Claude bot in an attempt to reverse engineer the AI tool.

First published on Fanatical Futurist on 26 June 2026.

311 Intelligence

What this means

Analysis by the 311 Strategic Intelligence Unit

The big shift is that finding software flaws is now treated as a weapon of state power. Qihoo 360's chief executive calls Mythos a cyber nuclear weapon and says vulnerability discovery may become the new strategic deterrent. His claims are not verified, but experts say China will eventually build such systems anyway. We track Robo-Hackers, programs that hunt for weaknesses and break in with little human help, and expect them to be in wide use by 2032. We rate AI Cyberattacks, attackers using AI to find flaws and run campaigns at machine speed, a Prepare trend.

What it means by sector.

• Every organisation running software: Tulongfeng is claimed to have found more than 3,000 vulnerabilities.
• Governments and defence: the Five Eyes cyber chiefs warned that the timeline is months, not years. The US has already used export controls to pull Mythos, and we track Technological Decoupling, the US and China separating their technology stacks, as a Prepare trend.
• AI developers: Anthropic has accused Alibaba of sending millions of queries to Claude to reverse engineer it. We rate AI Model Distillation, training a small AI to copy a big one, an Act now technology that already reached wide use in 2025.

What to do now.

• Shorten your patch cycle: assume attackers can find flaws in your software far faster than before.
• Use AI tools to find and fix weaknesses in your own code before others find them.
• Review who can query your AI models at scale, and watch for large volumes of probing requests.

The Starburst technologies behind this story

From the 311 Technology Starburst (first product, expected wide use and readiness):

Technology	Category	First product	Wide use	Action	TRL
Robo-Hackers	Security	2018	2032	Explore	7
Autonomous Cyber Reasoning Systems	Security	2025	2032	Explore	7
AI-Guided Fuzzing	Security	2024	2028	Prepare	8
Adversarial Cyber Defence	Security	2016	2029	Prepare	7
AI Model Distillation	Intelligence	2019	2025	Act now	9

And the trends they feed, from the 311 Trends Starburst:

Trend	Wide use	Action
AI Cyberattacks	2028	Prepare
Technological Decoupling	2028	Prepare
Sovereign AI	2029	Prepare

How this moves the trend

AI hacking has moved quickly from research to rivalry between states. In October 2025 we reported that AI could independently plan and execute cyber attacks, and days later that Chinese hackers had hijacked Anthropic's AI to launch automated cyber attacks. In April 2026 Qihoo 360 was already hunting software flaws with AI echoing Mythos traits. Now it claims a full Chinese answer to Mythos.

Go deeper with 311

• The 311 Starburst Centre: every technology and trend above, with timelines and readiness.
• 311 Vantage: ask what AI cyber weapons mean for your organisation and get a plain English executive brief.
• The Exponential Technology Codex and the Annual Trends Codex: the technologies and trends reshaping every industry.
• Book a briefing or keynote on the future of AI and cyber security for your board or leadership team.