# China Drafts Export Controls on 23 AI Technologies Including Model Weights; Already-Public Open Source Is Excluded

Times of AI Desk · 2026-10-20 · Policy

[https://timesof.ai/2026/10/china-mofcom-draft-export-controls-23-ai-technologies](https://timesof.ai/2026/10/china-mofcom-draft-export-controls-23-ai-technologies)

> China's commerce and science ministries published a draft on Oct. 16 adding 23 AI technologies — large models, agents, computing clusters and information processing — to the catalogue of technologies banned or restricted from export. Technology already public through open source or papers is excluded. Threshold details such as 2 trillion parameters come from Bloomberg via The Straits Times; we did not read the annex.

Beijing is proposing a licensing lever over unpublished frontier weights, offshore deployments and foreign takeovers of Chinese AI firms — not a ban on already-public open weights. China's **Ministry of Commerce** and **Ministry of Science and Technology** on **Friday, October 16** published Announcement 2026 No. 48, a draft revision of the Catalogue of Technologies Prohibited or Restricted from Export.

## What the MOFCOM text says

The draft adds **40** technologies across AI, biomedicine and photovoltaics. The AI section covers **23** items spanning large models, agents, computing clusters and information processing. "**Technology that has already entered the public domain through open source or published academic papers is not brought within the scope of the management,**" the announcement says, in our translation. Public comments run from October 16 to November 15.

From the publication date, a temporary **pre-export registration** applies until the catalogue is formally revised. Covered transfers include transferring ownership abroad, licensing technology for use abroad, and changing the owner or controller of a domestic technology to a foreign entity.

## Thresholds as Bloomberg reads them

**The Straits Times** republished a **Bloomberg** story saying restricted items would include model weights and source code above set performance thresholds: models with at least **2 trillion** parameters trained on "important data" (Bloomberg names Moonshot's Kimi K3 and Alibaba's Qwen3.8-Max) or ranked in the global top 10, and AI chip design at **14nm** or below or with 2.5D/3D packaging. Overseas deployment of a covered model would count as an export, with automatic licensing when it runs on the Chinese provider's own overseas infrastructure; foreign users' access through apps, websites or APIs would not be controlled, Bloomberg reported.

## The Decoder's reading

**The Decoder** headlined that China plans to tighten export controls **"on open-weight models"** and 23 AI technologies. That framing overstates the draft we read: the MOFCOM text excludes technology already public through open source or papers, and The Decoder's own body also says already-public technology is exempt and that publishing restricted weights as open source can qualify for automatic licensing. We attribute the "on open-weight models" reading to The Decoder's headline, not to the draft.

## Limits

- This is a consultation draft. Threshold figures (2 trillion parameters, top-10, 14nm, overseas-deployment and API carve-outs) come from Bloomberg via The Straits Times. **We did not read the annex** that lists the specific technology ranges.
- FLOPs and accelerator counts circulating online were not verified in any source we opened and are omitted.

## Sources

- [Ministry of Commerce Announcement 2026 No. 48 (October 16, 2026)](https://www.mofcom.gov.cn/zcfb/dwmygl/art/2026/art_61446ab4beee4f63973d4d0ab3097648.html)
- [The Straits Times (Bloomberg): China plans AI export curbs to exert control over key tech (October 16, 2026)](https://www.straitstimes.com/business/china-plans-ai-export-curbs-to-exert-control-over-key-tech)
- [The Decoder: China plans to tighten export controls on open-weight models and 23 key AI technologies (October 16, 2026)](https://the-decoder.com/china-tightens-export-controls-on-open-weight-models-and-23-key-ai-technologies/)