Beijing Might Curb Overseas Access to China's Top AI Models

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Chinese authorities have held discussions with leading technology firms about potentially restricting foreign access to the country's most advanced artificial intelligence models. The meetings, led by the Ministry of Commerce over the past month, included Alibaba, ByteDance, and startup Z.ai, and signal that Beijing now views cutting-edge AI as a strategic asset requiring tighter control.

Officials raised the possibility of limiting both closed-source and open-weight models, and discussed making the leak or theft of proprietary AI technology an offence under China's national security law, one source said. New measures to restrict who can fund domestic AI startups were also mentioned. The scope and timeline of any restrictions remain under discussion, and it is unclear whether they would apply only to future models.

The talks reflect growing anxiety in Beijing about the potential for advanced foreign AI, particularly Anthropic's Mythos model, to be used against Chinese interests. U.S. President Donald Trump's administration has already restricted foreign access to some American models, and Chinese state media and cybersecurity executives have called for the country to develop its own equivalent.

Since DeepSeek's R1 model gained global traction last year, Chinese AI systems have expanded rapidly overseas on the back of low costs and improving performance. Any restrictions could raise costs for businesses that rely on those models and reshape the competitive landscape. A May roundtable of Chinese legal experts, summarized in a Supreme People's Court journal, proposed a tiered framework: basic tools subject to filing, advanced technologies facing security reviews, and the most sensitive frontier models barred from public release or limited to domestic use.

China has already blocked Meta's acquisition of AI startup Manus, issued sweeping rules on overseas technology deals, and investigated startups that moved abroad for possible export control violations.