China’s Export Draft Licences AI Weights, Leaves APIs Open

China’s commerce and science ministries on October 16 proposed adding 23 AI technologies, including large models, agents, chip designs and computing clusters, to the national export catalogue. Open-source work already in the public domain would stay outside the rules, and serving a model through an app or an API would not count as an export.

A temporary registration duty for the listed technologies took effect the same day. The catalogue itself is still a draft, with comments open through November 15.

The Test Is Whether the Files Leave

The legal hook is a revision of the draft catalogue of prohibited and restricted exports, issued as Announcement No. 48 of 2026 by the Ministry of Commerce and the Ministry of Science and Technology. The notice rests on the Foreign Trade Law and the rules on technology import and export. It would add 40 technologies in three fields: 23 in AI, 12 in solar manufacturing, and 5 in biomedicine. Of those 40, 14 would be banned from export and 26 would need a licence.

A commerce ministry spokesperson said the revision is ordinary catalogue work that has run since 2001, and that it does not target any specific country, region or entity. The AI slice, the spokesperson said, is meant to keep the technology safe and controllable, including against tools that generate and mutate malicious code for use against critical networks, defence industry or core government systems.

The line that decides whether a Chinese model “going overseas” falls under the rules is transfer. If restricted technology moves from inside China to a party outside it, the catalogue applies. If a user abroad only calls the model, the ministry says that is not a technology export.

WHAT WE KNOW

• Live now: From October 16, exporters must register listed technologies on the ministry’s technology-trade system before the transfer, including deals already under way but not finished.
• Still a draft: The 40 additions, including the 23 AI items, are out for comment through November 15 and are not yet the final catalogue.
• The transfer test: Overseas local deployment of a restricted model counts as an export; API calls, apps, websites, SaaS and light on-device use do not.
• Public files: Technology already in the public domain through open-source release or academic papers is proposed to sit outside the catalogue.

WHAT IS UNCONFIRMED

• Parameter counting: The draft does not say whether the 2 trillion line is total parameters or active parameters in a mixture-of-experts model.
• One ranking or many: “Global leading level” is tied to top-tier public tests, but the text does not say whether a single board is enough.
• Final cutoffs: Thresholds, codes and facilitation measures can still move after comments.

That split is the working design. The ministry is not trying to turn off Chinese AI for foreign users. It is trying to put a licence on the moment the weights, code or design files change hands.

Models Above 2 Trillion Parameters Need a Licence

For large models, the restricted bucket covers core technology, including weights, key checkpoints, underlying source code, architecture, training optimisation and inference speed-up, if the model meets any one of three tests. Models trained on China’s “core data” and then used to provide services sit in the prohibited bucket, with “core data” pointed back to the Data Security Law. Models trained on “important data” and then used to provide services would be restricted.

The draft does not name any commercial model. Size alone already puts two well-known Chinese flagships over the line.

THE THREE TESTS FOR RESTRICTED MODEL CORE TECH

Moonshot AI’s Kimi K3 lists 2.8 trillion parameters on its model card, with 104 billion active, and an open-weight technical report for Kimi K3 describes the same 2.8 trillion mixture-of-experts design. Alibaba’s Qwen3.8-Max has been listed at 2.4 trillion parameters. Both sit above the size cutoff. The published Kimi weights went up in late July, which is the fact that then runs into the public-domain carve-out.

Open Weights Stay Outside the Catalogue

A footnote on the AI section would keep out any technology that has already entered the public domain through open-source release or papers. That is a full carve-out, not a fast licence. A separate track covers future open-sourcing of technology that is otherwise restricted: that export would get automatic licensing, which the ministry says should amount to filing and shipping in one step.

The same fast track would apply to several other paths the government wants to keep moving.

PATHS THE MINISTRY SAYS GET AUTOMATIC LICENSING

• Open-sourcing: Releasing otherwise restricted AI technology as open source.
• Own overseas clouds: Compute centres that Chinese firms build and run abroad.
• Tape-out abroad: Sending a chip design overseas for fabrication.
• Joint research: Work that uses overseas resources.
• Standards work: Taking part in international standard-setting.

Those five paths are how a 2-trillion-parameter class model still reaches developers after the catalogue is locked. The bite is on the next unpublished frontier release, and on a private build installed on a customer’s own servers. A foreign team that wants to drop a new Chinese flagship onto its own cluster will be in the licence pile. A team that calls the same model through an API, or downloads weights that are already public, will not.

The Chinese government’s necessary management of these technologies aims to solidify the security baseline, prevent misuse and abuse, ensure that AI remains under human control, and promote international governance of AI.

Ministry of Commerce spokesperson, statement on Announcement No. 48

On overseas product forms, the spokesperson was more specific. After the measures take effect, the vast majority will remain freely exportable. For restricted AI, local deployment overseas is in scope; deployment on a firm’s own overseas cloud, or in other lower-risk settings, can use automatic licensing. Using a restricted large model to offer API calls, app or web interaction, SaaS, or light on-device deployment is not treated as large-model technology export.

That is a cloud-and-API export model written into a control list. The files stay with the Chinese operator unless a licence says otherwise. Access still crosses the border.

What the Chip and Cluster Rules Cover

The AI list is not only models. Restricted chip-design technology would include architecture, in-house instruction sets, intelligent-compute IP cores and the supporting software stack if any one of several flags is met, among them a need for a 14 nanometer or smaller process, 2.5D or 3D advanced packaging, high-speed interconnect, or a non-von Neumann design such as compute-in-memory. Some 3D flash and memory-chip design points sit on the same list, including memory processes at 18 nanometers or below.

Cluster rules reach the fabric that ties accelerators together. The draft’s cluster section would restrict high-speed interconnect at or above 800 GB/s bidirectional, plus fault-tolerance tricks used to keep large training jobs alive, and it defines a large intelligent cluster as a setup with more than 10,000 AI accelerator cards. Agents built mainly for critical infrastructure, defence industry or core government work, and that hit a high-performance bar, are in the prohibited bucket.

HARDWARE AND CLUSTER LINES IN THE DRAFT

• Logic process: AI processor design that needs 14 nanometers or smaller.
• Packaging: 2.5D or 3D advanced integration.
• Memory: Selected 3D flash and memory designs, including 18 nanometer or below memory process points.
• Cluster size: More than 10,000 AI accelerator cards, with interconnect at or above 800 GB/s.

Those hardware entries matter for joint design work and for Chinese firms that tape out abroad, which is why tape-out sits on the automatic-licence list rather than being frozen. Cross-border chip projects with a Chinese partner should expect the new registration step from October 16, even while the final catalogue is still being argued.

Registration Began on October 16

The comment period and the registration duty started together, which is the unusual part of the package. Companies do not wait for November 15 to start filing. From the day of the notice until the revised catalogue takes effect, a technology exporter has to register on the ministry’s unified business platform before shipping anything in the annex, including unfinished transfers.

THE CATALOGUE’S PATH TO THIS DRAFT

1. 2001: China first publishes the catalogue of technologies prohibited or restricted from export.
2. 2008, 2020, 2023 and 2025: The catalogue is revised, with items added and removed as a standing practice.
3. October 16, 2026: The commerce and science ministries issue Announcement No. 48, opening comments on 40 new items and switching on pre-export registration the same day.
4. November 15, 2026: The public comment window closes; the ministries then decide the final text and when it takes effect.

Registration covers four cases: transferring ownership of the technology to an overseas party, including intellectual-property transfers; licensing a domestic technology for use abroad; a change that makes the owner or actual controller of a domestic technology an overseas entity; and any other case the ministry later flags. Filers give basic facts on the exporter and the recipient, the destination country or region, the technology and its use, and an estimated value. Several technologies going to the same recipient in one deal can be combined on one form.

That paperwork is the only part of the package that is already binding. It is a pre-licence census, not yet a denial machine. How hard the later licence step becomes will depend on the final indicators, and on whether automatic licensing really behaves like file-and-go once the catalogue is in force.

Solar Lines and Gene Therapy Ride Along

The same notice folds in 12 solar items covering polysilicon, wafer and cell manufacturing, and the key equipment that carries those techniques. Perovskite and tandem-cell module production is among the examples given for the prohibited list; engineering for a single polysilicon line of 30,000 tonnes a year or more is among the restricted examples. Five biomedicine items cover cell and gene therapy, small nucleic-acid drugs and pathogen-related technology. For biomedicine, outbound licences that do not transfer ownership would get automatic licensing.

The spokesperson said the ministries had already taken soundings from research institutes, industry groups and major firms, and that most listed items carry numerical indicators so that products made with the technology stay outside the catalogue. The ministries also said they will move stale items off the list as the technology ages. Comments can go to jinxianmulu@mofcom.gov.cn, or by fax or post to the ministry’s security and controls bureau in Beijing, through November 15.

Until that text is locked, the practical rule for a Chinese lab is narrow and already in force: if you are transferring listed technology, or licensing it abroad, or putting it under foreign control, register first. Foreign users who only call a Chinese model, or who run weights that were already public on October 16, are not in that queue. The next unpublished model above 2 trillion parameters, installed on someone else’s overseas servers, is.