China is considering significantly tighter export controls on artificial intelligence and semiconductor technologies, a move aimed at preventing advanced capabilities from reaching Western rivals amid an escalating tech contest with the United States.
The Ministry of Commerce has convened discussions with major firms including Alibaba, ByteDance and Zhipu to examine restrictions covering both closed-source and some open-weight AI models, including limits on the overseas transfer of key training data and the downloading of model weights by foreign users. Officials have also sought industry input on curbing the ability of overseas chipmakers to manufacture advanced semiconductors based on Chinese designs.
The deliberations come as Chinese AI laboratories narrow the gap with U.S. competitors. Moonshot's newly released Kimi K3 model outperformed Anthropic's flagship Opus 4.8 on most benchmarks, signalling a rapid advance in domestic capabilities that Beijing now appears eager to shield.