On October 16, 2026, China's Ministry of Commerce and Ministry of Science and Technology issued Announcement No. 48 of 2026, proposing to add 40 technologies to the export control catalogue, including 23 in artificial intelligence. The draft restricts frontier AI model weights at scale, defining thresholds of 10^26 FLOPs of training compute, 2 trillion parameters, or a global top-10 ranking. Agent architectures and AI-enabled offensive cyber capabilities are also controlled.
An interim pre-export registration requirement is already in effect, applying to exports in progress. Unlike prior 2020 additions focusing on interface technology, this draft targets core model weights and agent systems. The announcement contains two instruments: the catalogue additions are open for comment until November 15, 2026, while the registration requirement applies immediately.
MOFCOM states the measures are routine and not targeted at any specific country, aiming to prevent uncontrolled diffusion while protecting legitimate cooperation. Across all sectors, 14 technologies are prohibited and 26 restricted, with 23 in AI, 5 in biomedicine, and 12 in photovoltaics. Licensing is administered by provincial authorities, though central intervention occurs in prominent cases.
Source: Hacker News · Summarized by HeadlinesBriefing