China tightens export controls on AI technology, top open source models may be restricted

The Ministry of Commerce and the Ministry of Science and Technology of China announced a revised draft of the list of prohibited and restricted export technologies, which will bring 23 key AI technologies under control, covering large models, intelligent agents, computing clusters and data processing, while establishing a fast track for automatic licensing for open source releases. The control list covers 23 key technologies. The draft targets 23 key AI technologies, spanning the fields of large models, intelligent agents, computing clusters and data processing. AI tools that can write or modify their own malware to attack critical infrastructure, military or government agencies face a comprehensive export ban. Some AI tools used to find software vulnerabilities will not be directly banned, but will be subject to new export restrictions. Two categories of export control thresholds for large models Large AI models are subject to export controls in two circumstances. The first category covers models trained on China’s “important data” (as defined in the country’s Data Security Law and related rules) and providing services accordingly. Legally disclosed data is exempt; a very small amount of data, up to 0.1%, is allowed if the data has been cleaned in advance, never appears in AI output, and will not significantly improve the research and development capabilities of core technologies in the field. The second category covers the core technology behind large models, including weights, checkpoints, source code, architecture, and training or inference methods. When a model reaches a training computing power of 10^26 FLOPs, has at least 2 trillion parameters, or ranks among the top ten in the world, it will fall into the regulatory scope. Export officials will refer to public rankings from major domestic and foreign evaluation agencies or industry platforms to determine top ten status based on overall performance, specific tasks, security or global usage. AI technologies that have been published through open source releases or research papers are completely exempt from these new regulations. Automatic licensing fast track and deployment boundaries In order not to stifle the domestic open source boom, China has also introduced fast track. Releasing restricted AI technologies and weights in an open source manner is eligible for "automatic licensing"; this is also applicable to Chinese companies that operate data centers overseas, tape out chips overseas, conduct research with foreign partners, or assist in formulating international standards. According to the department