Chinese regulators are weighing stricter export controls on advanced AI models, semiconductor technologies, and related components, according to the Financial Times. The Ministry of Commerce has been consulting with major domestic tech firms, including Alibaba, ByteDance, Zhipu, and Huawei, about how to effectively limit overseas access to training data and model weights.
What Beijing is planning
The proposed measures would revise China’s catalogue of prohibited and restricted exports, a list that dictates which technologies can and cannot leave the country.
Regulators are reportedly exploring controls that could limit foreign chipmakers, including Qualcomm and TSMC, from producing advanced semiconductors based on designs originating from Chinese firms.
The consultations have also touched on agentic AI, the category of AI systems that can autonomously take actions and make decisions. Regulators want to understand the national security implications of letting those capabilities walk out the door through foreign acquisitions or partnerships.
The tit-for-tat tech war deepens
The US has spent years ratcheting up its own export controls on chips and AI technology headed to China. Washington restricted sales of advanced Nvidia GPUs, pressured the Netherlands to limit ASML’s lithography equipment exports, and convinced Japan and South Korea to join the effort.
China’s response had included restrictions on gallium, germanium, and other critical minerals, and counter-sanctions on specific US defense companies. This latest consideration signals a proactive strategy to classify China’s homegrown AI capabilities as critical national assets that need protecting.
If enacted, these export controls would represent one of the more comprehensive revisions to China’s export control protocols in recent years.