China proposes export controls on its biggest AI models and chip designs

The announcement, No. 48 of 2026, proposes adding 40 technologies to the Catalogue of Technologies Prohibited or Restricted from Export. That list has existed since 2001, and the two ministries have updated it several times since.

This round covers three fields:

• Artificial intelligence: 23 technologies tied to large models, AI agents, computing clusters and information processing.
• Solar power: 12 technologies in polysilicon, silicon wafer and solar cell manufacturing.
• Biomedicine: 5 technologies in cell and gene therapy, small nucleic acid drugs and pathogenic microorganisms.

Of the 40, 14 would be banned from export outright and 26 would be restricted, meaning an exporter needs a license. AI makes up more than half of the list.

In a Q&A with reporters, a commerce ministry spokesperson gave examples. AI-driven generation and mutation of malicious code would be banned. AI-assisted discovery of software vulnerabilities would be restricted.

The draft itself names no models. But it sets thresholds, and outlets have done the math.

For large models, the curbs would cover the weights, source code and other core parts, Bloomberg reported, as summarized by The Next Web. They would apply to models with at least 2 trillion parameters, or models that rank in the world's top 10 on measures such as performance and safety.

A parameter is one of the adjustable numbers inside a model. More parameters roughly means more capacity to learn.

According to the Associated Press, Moonshot's Kimi K3 and Alibaba's Qwen 3.8-Max are among the Chinese models above the 2 trillion mark.

The AP also reports two outright bans in the AI section:

• Sensitive data: core technology of large models trained on sensitive national data.
• Sensitive places: AI agents built for highly sensitive environments, such as national defense and critical information infrastructure.

Weights are the numbers a model settles on during training. They are the finished product.

Think of it like a recipe versus a meal. Selling you dinner at a restaurant is one thing. Handing over the recipe, the secret sauce and the kitchen is another. The draft leaves the restaurant open and puts a lock on the kitchen.

That's why weights matter so much. Whoever has them can run the model on their own machines, without paying for the expensive training run that produced it.

Yes. This is the part most readers will care about.

The commerce ministry says offering a restricted model through an API, an app or website, a SaaS product, or a lightweight version running on a device is not a technology export under these rules. Chinese companies can keep serving users abroad.

The catch: running a restricted model on servers in another country does count as an export. If a company runs it on its own cloud servers abroad, which the ministry calls relatively low risk, it can get an automatic license.

Automatic licensing, which the ministry describes as basically "report and go," would also cover:

• Open-sourcing AI technology.
• Overseas data centers that Chinese companies build and run themselves.
• Chip manufacturing abroad, when a design is sent to a foreign factory for production.
• Joint research using overseas resources, and work on international standards.

Technology that is already public through open-source releases or academic papers would not be controlled at all.

In real life If you use a Chinese AI app on your phone in Los Angeles or Berlin, nothing changes under this draft. What could change is whether a foreign company can license and download the weights of China's largest models to run on its own servers.

The AI section reaches into hardware too. The draft would limit design know-how for AI chips made at 14 nanometres or below, or built by stacking chips in 2.5D or 3D, The Next Web reports. Some memory chip designs are on the list as well.

The ministry stresses one limit: products made with these technologies are not covered. The controls target the know-how, not the finished goods.

This reverses a familiar direction. For years, US-led rules have kept the most advanced AI chips and chipmaking machines away from China, the AP notes. We covered one piece of that story in how Chinese fabs stocked up on DUV lithography tools.

The commerce ministry cites national security. Its statement, as translated by the AP, says the measures aim at "reinforcing the security bottom line, preventing misuse and abuse, and ensuring that AI remains under human control."

The ministry also says:

• It's routine: catalogue updates are normal trade management and do not target any country, region or company.
• It's narrow: most of the listed technologies have specific technical thresholds, and most AI technology can still be exported freely.
• It can change: technologies that stop being advanced will be removed over time.

Analysts quoted by the AP see a wider trend. Lian Jye Su, chief analyst at Omdia, called it a possible response to Western countries setting sovereignty requirements on AI, robotics and telecommunications. Gary Ng, a senior economist at Natixis, said the world is "getting more fragmented" in trade, investment and access to technology.

The big picture: governments on both sides now treat top AI models as strategic. The AP points out that in June, the US Commerce Department asked Anthropic to bar foreign nationals from some of its most powerful models, a restriction later lifted.

This didn't come out of nowhere.

• July 2026: the Financial Times reported that the commerce ministry was consulting companies including Alibaba, ByteDance and Zhipu about limits on training data transfers and foreign downloads of model weights, TechRepublic reported. Reuters had separately reported meetings on overseas access to top models.
• October 16: the draft list is published, along with a temporary registration rule.
• November 15: the public comment window closes.

The registration rule is already in force. Until the revised catalogue takes effect, exporters must register any listed technology before exporting it. That includes deals that have started but are not finished, transfers of ownership, licensing abroad and changes of control to a foreign owner. Companies decide for themselves whether their technology falls in scope.

As Semafor notes, open questions remain about compliance and about whether the rules give Beijing more leverage without slowing the global spread of Chinese AI.

• Using Chinese AI apps: nothing changes. Apps, websites and APIs are outside the rules.
• Open-source models: models already released openly are not covered, so existing downloads stay available.
• Businesses abroad: licensing or self-hosting China's largest models could need approval once the rules take effect.
• Developers in China: any export of listed technology needs registration now, even before the final rules.