A White House national security memo has pointed to declassified intelligence that accuses Alibaba of giving technology and data support to the Chinese military for operations linked to targets in the United States, the Financial Times reported on Friday.

The memo, which includes material that was once labelled “top secret”, describes the tech giant as helping the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) with capabilities that Washington considers a serious risk to US security.

According to the FT report, the memo says Alibaba allowed the Chinese government and the PLA to access customer information like IP addresses, WiFi details and payment records, along with several AI-related services, and it also mentions intelligence that suggests some employees shared knowledge of “zero-day” exploits with the PLA.

Alibaba firmly denied these claims and told the newspaper, “The claims purportedly based on US intelligence that was leaked by your source are complete nonsense. This is plainly an attempt to manipulate public opinion and malign Alibaba.” The company did not answer the FT’s question about whether it ever had any relationship with the PLA.

This report comes as the United States has increased its scrutiny of Chinese cloud and AI companies, with senior officials warning about Beijing’s ability to reach or misuse sensitive American data, and the memo does not name the specific US targets the PLA is said to be focusing on, although US intelligence assessments this year have warned that China has the capability to compromise American infrastructure in ways that could be activated in a conflict.

In March, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence pointed to a major breach in US telecommunications networks known as Salt Typhoon to show the “growing breadth and depth” of China’s cyber activity, and a US official told the newspaper that the administration “takes these threats very seriously and is working day and night to mitigate the ongoing and potential risks and effects from [cyber] intrusions that use untrusted vendors”.

The memo, dated November 1, was released right after President Donald Trump met Chinese President Xi Jinping in South Korea and agreed to a one-year pause on trade restrictions, and the White House did not say whether it would directly respond to the activities mentioned in the document, while the CIA also declined to comment.

Some US lawmakers have earlier urged the administration to consider action against Alibaba, and John Moolenaar, the Republican chair of the House China committee, said the allegations match long standing concerns that Chinese companies are governed by national laws that override customer protections elsewhere, and he said, “The federal government and industry must take steps to protect the American people and eliminate Chinese companies’ access to our markets and innovation”.

In May, a group of lawmakers, including Moolenaar, asked the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to remove 25 Chinese firms from the listings, among them Alibaba, because of concerns about links to the PLA and China’s “military civil fusion” strategy, which they say forces companies to share technology with the military.

Cybersecurity experts say the PLA’s cyber operations have expanded beyond traditional espionage, and Dennis Wilder, who earlier headed China analysis at the CIA, said the scale of the PLA’s intrusions has reached an “unprecedented” level.

He said, “The PLA is conducting widespread and daily intrusions against US critical infrastructure, including airports, seaports and other critical transportation nodes of US forces in the Pacific, but also in the continental US”, and he described these activities as preparing the ground for “system destruction warfare” if a conflict occurs.

Military analysts also note that armed forces around the world now rely heavily on private technology companies for cloud services and research, and General Sir Richard Barrons, a retired British commander involved in drafting the UK’s 2025 Strategic Defence Review, said companies now hold much of the technology, R and D and resources that once stayed within militaries. Beijing has dismissed the allegations in the memo.

The Chinese embassy in Washington said the United States was carrying out a “complete distortion of facts”, and added that China “attaches great importance to, and protects, data privacy and security in accordance with the law, and has never and will never require companies or individuals to collect or provide data located in foreign countries in violation of local laws”.