China moves to curb exports of AI technology, lists 23 AI items in draft controls
Beijing unveiled a draft expanding its export control list to 40 technologies, 23 of them in AI, from large models to agents. Exporters must register such deals in advance, effective immediately.
Symbolic image · Photo: N509FZ / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0 (cropped and resized)
China's commerce and science ministries on Friday published a draft revision of the country's catalogue of technologies banned or restricted from export. It would add 40 technologies, 14 of them prohibited and 26 restricted. Twenty-three relate to artificial intelligence, including large models, AI agents, computing clusters and information processing, while five are in biomedicine and 12 in solar photovoltaics.
The commerce ministry cited AI-driven generation of malicious code as an example of a banned item and AI-assisted vulnerability discovery as a restricted one. Technology already in the public domain through open-source releases or academic papers would be excluded. Until the new list takes effect, companies must register such exports with the ministry in advance, starting immediately. Public comments are open until Nov. 15.
Beijing cited national security. According to The Associated Press, AI models with 2 trillion or more parameters could be subject to restrictions. The United States has for years limited China's access to the most advanced AI chips and the equipment used to make them.