China's Ministry of Commerce plans to include AI models in the export control catalog

China's Ministry of Commerce and Ministry of Science and Technology issued Announcement No. 48 of 2026 on October 16, proposing to add 40 items to the Catalogue of Technologies Prohibited or Restricted from Export in China, of which 14 are prohibited from export and 26 are restricted from export, and to implement pre-export registration for all newly added technologies effective immediately. The draft sets three thresholds for frontier models: ≥10^26 FLOP, ≥2T parameters, or reaching a globally leading level, and also covers AI chip design, memory chips, ten-thousand-card-level clusters, agents, AIGC detection tools, training data, and cyber offense and defense capabilities; scenarios such as open source, self-built overseas data centers, and overseas tape-out may use the report-and-export channel. The public comment period runs until November 15.