No information about customers or partners was accessed or stolen. Credit: CFOTO/Future Publishing via Getty Images.

A hacker infiltrated OpenAI’s internal messaging systems last year and stole details about the ChatGPT maker’s AI technology, the New York Times reported on Thursday (4 July).

The hacker reportedly gained access to an online forum and stole conversations between OpenAI employees about the company’s latest technology advances, the publication reported, citing two people familiar with the matter. 

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The hacker did not gain access to where the company creates and trains its AI, according to the sources.

Executives at OpenAI were made aware of the breach in April 2023 but decided not to make the news public. No information about customers or partners was accessed or stolen. 

According to the report, executives believed the hacker to be an individual party with no ties to a foreign government and did not believe the incident to be a national security threat.

OpenAI said in June it was planning to block access to technology used to build AI products in China and other countries, according to a Chinese state-owned newspaper.

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ChatGPT is not available in mainland China but many start-ups in the country have been able to access OpenAI’s application programming interface platform (API) to create their own applications.

Chinese users of the API platform have reportedly received emails since notifying them that they are in a “region that OpenAI does not currently support”.

In May, OpenAI said it had blocked five covert influence operations that wanted to use its AI models for “deceptive activity” across the internet.