- On 16 Oct Chinese ministries proposed adding 40 technologies to the export-control catalogue, 23 of them in AI.
- Consultation runs to 15 Nov; until then a temporary pre-export registration applies.
- Already public technology, such as open source, is excluded.
In short: on 16 October 2026 China’s Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM) and Ministry of Science and Technology proposed, in announcement no. 48/2026, changes to the catalogue of technologies prohibited and restricted from export. It is a draft, not final law.
What changed
- 40 technologies are to be added to the catalogue in three fields: AI (23), biomedicine (5) and photovoltaics (12).
- The AI items include large models, agents, computing clusters and information-processing technologies.
- From 16 October a temporary pre-export registration applies, until the revised catalogue is formally issued.
- AI technologies that have already entered the public domain, for example through open source or academic publication, are to be excluded.
- Comments can be submitted during the public consultation from 16 October to 15 November 2026. The announcement gives no date for the catalogue to take effect.
What about DeepSeek
According to The Register, citing Chinese state media, DeepSeek and MiniMax received permission to keep exporting. This is second-hand: I did not find it in the ministries’ announcement, so I treat it with caution.
How to read this
These are changes to export control of technology from China. The announcement does not describe the effect on people who use Chinese models abroad, so I do not guess. It is worth watching the outcome of the consultation and how “publicly available” is defined. I write more about AI rules in the AI Act and law hub.