Chinese draft export rules include 23 AI technologies
Chinese model weights and AI agents go out of China only with a license, but API access is free.
On 16 October 2026, the Chinese ministries of Commerce and of Science and Technology published Announcement No. 48. It is a draft list of 40 technologies for export control, and 23 of them are in AI. This is the first Chinese export control on AI. A registration rule is in effect.
The draft puts 14 technologies on a ban list and 26 on a license list. The AI items include large language models, AI agents, computer clusters and chip-design methods.
The controls include model weights and source code for models with two trillion parameters or more. They also include models in the top 10 of world tests for performance and safety. They include agents for national defense and very important information systems.
A registration is necessary for each change of ownership, IP license or change of control to an entity in a different country. The rule is in effect from 16 October, and it includes deals that are not complete. The comment period for the last list ends on 15 November 2026.
Open-source releases and science papers are not in the draft. API and SaaS (a service that you use on the internet) access are also free of the controls. The controls are for on-premise copies of model weights and for self-hosted use of Chinese agents.
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