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China proposes export controls on 23 AI technologies

China's Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM) and Ministry of Science and Technology opened a draft revision of the catalogue of technologies prohibited or restricted for export on October 16. Of 40 new items, 23 relate to AI: large models, agents, computing clusters and information processing. Until the final rules take effect, covered exports must be registered in advance.

By: Mikola Máté Patrik · · 3 min read

Ministry of Commerce of China announcement No. 48 of 2026 on revising the export technology catalogue
Image: Ministry of Commerce of China · Screenshot · Screenshot of official government page · Source

What the draft covers

Announcement No. 48 of 2026 would add 40 technologies across AI, biomedicine and photovoltaics. The AI block covers 23 items. Global Times reports that 14 would go into the prohibited category and 26 into the restricted one. Prohibited exports would include core technologies of large models trained with national key sensitive data, and agents that serve key national information infrastructure, national defence or core government affairs (Global Times).

The restricted list would include 2.5D and 3D AI chip design, 3D flash memory, AI information processing and voiceprint recognition. The Next Web, citing Bloomberg, says large-model controls would cover weights, source code and other core parts for models with at least 2 trillion parameters or that rank among the world's top ten. The draft itself does not name any model (The Next Web).

Chinese Ministry of Commerce website: Announcement No. 48 of 2026 on revising the export-restricted technology catalogue
Ministry of Commerce of the People's Republic of China · Screenshot · Screenshot of official government page · Source

Source: Ministry of Commerce of China. Announcement No. 48 of 2026 on revising the catalogue.

What is out of scope

The announcement explicitly excludes technologies already in the public domain through open source, published academic papers or other means. A ministry spokesperson said Chinese firms could keep serving users abroad through apps, websites and APIs. According to The Next Web, running a covered model on servers abroad would count as an export, while firms that run it on their own cloud servers abroad could get an automatic licence.

In biomedicine (5 items), outbound licensing that does not transfer ownership would get facilitation such as automatic licensing. Photovoltaics get 12 items, covering polysilicon, wafer and cell manufacturing.

Temporary registration

From the announcement's publication until the revised catalogue takes effect, exporters must register covered technologies on MOFCOM's unified business platform (ecomp.mofcom.gov.cn) before export. Incomplete deals already under way are included. Registration covers transferring ownership abroad, licensing for overseas use, and cases where the owner or actual controller becomes a foreign entity (MOFCOM).

Comments are open from October 16 to November 15, 2026.

Official rationale

The spokesperson said the application of AI, biomedicine and photovoltaic technologies in sensitive fields has grown, and major economies have already extended export controls to varying degrees. The aim is to prevent technology from escaping control and improper proliferation, and to keep AI under human control. The spokesperson also stressed that the draft does not target any country or firm, and that China supports open source, joint research and AI capacity-building in the Global South (NBD / MOFCOM Q&A).

The move arrives alongside Taiwan's plan to criminalise AI chip smuggling to China. We covered that in an earlier piece.

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