(Oct 16): China proposed adding advanced artificial intelligence (AI) technologies to its export-control list, potentially restricting overseas transfers of AI models and chip designs in an effort to keep closer control over homegrown advancements in a strategically important sector.
The draft proposal covers 23 AI technologies, including large language models, agents, chip designs and computing clusters. Restricted technologies would include model weights and source code for products exceeding certain performance thresholds.
Chinese AI startups have this summer made significant progress in closing the gap on US industry leaders. Models like Moonshot AI’s Kimi K3 and DeepSeek’s latest editions offer better pricing and Chinese companies also favour the approach of sharing the weights — used to steer an AI system toward finding an answer — of their models to encourage developers to build on top of them. They’re also increasingly looking for markets beyond China, with the likes of Z.AI Co making their wares available on US cloud service providers like Amazon Web Services.
The proposed export curbs are aimed at ensuring “the safety and controllability” of AI technology, a spokesperson for the Commerce Ministry said, citing the risk of misuse for attacking critical infrastructure, defence industries and core government systems by non-state actors or malicious entities.
“The Chinese government’s necessary management of these technologies aims to solidify the security baseline, prevent misuse and abuse, ensure that AI remains under human control, and promote international governance of AI,” the spokesperson said in a statement.
The proposal would restrict exports of core technology for models containing at least two trillion parameters — like Kimi K3 or Alibaba Group Holding Ltd’s Qwen3.8-Max — or ranking among the world’s top 10 on measures including performance, usage and safety. The curb would cover model weights, checkpoints, source code and architecture.
The new Chinese guidelines are likely to stoke uncertainty in an AI industry already grappling with strict content controls, a licensing regime and potential US sanctions. The proposed restrictions against shipping mega-parameter models abroad are likely to hamper development given AI labs are training ever larger platforms: just last month, Alibaba declared plans to develop models with between 5 and 10 trillion parameters, far larger than what’s common today, for longer and more complex tasks.
AI models trained on China’s “core data”, as defined by relevant legislation such as the Data Security Law, will be banned from export, according to the proposal. The Data Security Law describes state core data as “data concerning national security, the lifeline of the national economy, key public livelihoods, and major public interests”.
Open-source technology and research already in the public domain wouldn’t be covered, and the government will provide streamlined procedures, such as automatic licensing, to exports involving open-source AI technologies. Beijing said the measures weren’t aimed at any particular country, region or entity.
China simultaneously imposed a temporary registration requirement for exports of the technologies covered by the proposal. The measure took effect Friday and applies to transactions already underway but not completed, including intellectual-property transfers, overseas licensing and changes that place Chinese technology owners under foreign control.
Deploying a covered model overseas would constitute a technology export, according to a statement. Deployments on overseas infrastructure owned by the Chinese provider could qualify for automatic licensing.
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