China proposes export controls on advanced AI, from model weights to agents

China wants a say in who gets its best AI. Beijing has proposed adding advanced AI technologies to its export-control list, a step designed to restrict the overseas transfer of AI models and chips, Bloomberg reported. What’s on the list The proposal was unveiled on October 16, 2026, by two agencies: China’s Ministry of Commerce and its Ministry of Science and Technology. It covers 40 technologies across three fields: artificial intelligence, biomedicine and photovoltaics. Those 40 technologies fall into two buckets. Fourteen are marked as prohibited, while the remaining 26 are classified as restricted. AI dominates the list. It accounts for 23 specific items, which is more than half of the entire draft. Among the AI entries are large language models, intelligent agents and computing clusters. The most pointed provision targets model weights and source code. Exports of either would be subject to the rules when the underlying products surpass designated performance thresholds. In technical terms, weights are the numerical parameters a model develops during training. Hand them over and the recipient effectively gets the finished product, without paying for the training run that produc...