AP investigation: U.S. tech firms helped design China’s digital police state, documents show
Tens of thousands of leaked and classified files, internal emails and procurement records link American products and partnerships — including IBM’s i2 software — to tools used in mass surveillance and predictive policing in China
An Associated Press investigation found that American technology companies played a substantial role in building China’s digital surveillance apparatus over the past quarter century, providing software, partnerships and expertise that Chinese police and state-owned contractors used to monitor, flag and detain citizens.
Reporters reviewed more than 20,000 leaked internal emails and databases, thousands of pages of classified documents and accounting records, hundreds of marketing and trade-show materials, and over 4,000 Chinese procurement bids and public records. The material, gathered over three years and supplemented by interviews with more than 100 current and former executives, officials, officers and engineers, indicates U.S. firms — most notably IBM — were integrated into early designs for systems that have been used in operations including the mass detention campaign in Xinjiang.
Much of the investigation grew out of a massive trove of material from Landasoft, a Chinese surveillance company and former IBM partner, whose leaked emails and databases showed its software was used to target, grade and track large segments of Xinjiang’s Uyghur population. AP journalists traced Landasoft’s links to IBM back to the 2000s and found references in the leaks and in Chinese corporate records showing Landasoft had marketed software based on IBM’s i2 intelligence analysis tools and that Landasoft staff said their product was copied from i2 and adapted for the Chinese market.
AP reporters also obtained thousands of pages of classified Chinese government documents and blueprints from a Chinese military contractor described as an IBM partner. Three outside experts on Chinese surveillance who reviewed the classified material judged it authentic. "It is effectively inconceivable that they are not legitimate," said Conor Healy, research affairs director for surveillance research publication IPVM. Healy said the documents were consistent with other government technology deployment records he has examined.
The documents and procurement records show a wide array of foreign-made technologies were bought by police agencies across China, and they detail collaborations in which American firms and their products were positioned as tools for Chinese policing. Marketing materials and trade-expo presentations obtained by AP frequently advertised gear on official channels and were in some cases marked "internal." AP found examples in which U.S. technology was explicitly promoted for law enforcement and predictive policing applications.
Predictive policing systems, as described in the documents and by experts interviewed for this reporting, aggregate large amounts of data — including communications, travel, transactions, public records and sensor feeds — to identify individuals deemed suspicious and to forecast potential future activity. The AP investigation concluded that American software and analytic methodologies helped introduce and scale such approaches within Chinese public security systems, laying groundwork for broader, national deployments.
The investigation drew on multiple major leaks. A whistleblower removed classified documents and internal records from a Chinese military contractor and an intermediary provided them to the AP. Separately, Yael Grauer, a freelance journalist, obtained the Landasoft email trove and worked with AP reporters to verify and analyze its contents. Additional documents were provided by ChinaFile, a digital magazine of the Asia Society, and were supplemented with open-source research, corporate reports and court judgments.
AP reporters faced obstacles and risks while reporting. Sources in China often requested anonymity out of fear for their safety and that of their families. At times, journalists were questioned by Chinese authorities during reporting. Investigative staff said the combination of leaked internal materials, procurement bids and public records allowed verification through cross-checking phone numbers, corporate filings and other corroborating evidence.
IBM and other companies named in the AP reporting responded to inquiries by saying they complied with applicable laws, export controls and sanctions. IBM said it fully complied with all laws, sanctions and U.S. export controls governing business in China, past and present. Other firms also emphasized their adherence to legal requirements and said they were not responsible for how third parties used or adapted their technologies.
Some of the documents depict closer, more explicit partnerships between Chinese state entities and foreign vendors than companies have publicly acknowledged. In some cases, state-owned defense contractors and Chinese police agencies appear to have collaborated with foreign firms to adapt, localize and integrate analytic software into policing platforms.
Human rights groups, academics and some former industry insiders have previously criticized foreign technology's role in enabling rights abuses in China, particularly in Xinjiang. The AP’s reporting provides additional documentary evidence tying specific products and partnerships to systems used in the region and describes how commercial relationships and technical transfers evolved into integrated surveillance capabilities.
U.S. and international policymakers have in recent years moved to restrict the sale of certain technologies to Chinese entities, and the U.S. has imposed sanctions and export controls targeting surveillance-related goods and services. Company statements included in AP reporting said they followed such rules; the documents reviewed by AP do not on their face resolve questions about legal compliance in every instance and have prompted renewed scrutiny from lawmakers and advocacy groups.
The AP said its global investigative team spoke to more than 100 sources across a dozen territories, analyzed tens of thousands of pages of documents and relied on multiple independent reviews to corroborate sensitive materials. The investigation’s findings were published amid ongoing debates about the responsibility of technology firms for downstream uses of their products and the challenges of regulating advanced analytics and artificial intelligence when exported or retooled for domestic security operations.
Contact information for the AP's investigative team and additional documentation related to the reporting were provided by AP. The reporting builds on years of research into China’s surveillance architecture and adds new documentary evidence about how foreign technology companies’ products and partnerships intersected with the design and deployment of the country's policing systems.