{"text":[[{"start":10.15,"text":"Chinese regulators are considering tightening export controls on artificial intelligence and semiconductor technologies, as the US-China rivalry intensifies in cutting-edge AI."}],[{"start":20.75,"text":"Regulators led by the Ministry of Commerce (MofCom) have been consulting leading domestic AI and chipmaking groups on how to prevent China’s advanced technologies and star start-ups from being acquired by the west, according to two people involved in the discussions."}],[{"start":36.95,"text":"MofCom talked to AI companies including Alibaba, ByteDance and Zhipu on limiting the transfer of key data for the training of their models overseas, as well as allowing their model weights to be downloaded by foreign users, the people said. China would still let overseas customers access the models and services, however."}],[{"start":55.400000000000006,"text":"China’s AI lab Moonshot last week released its Kimi K3 model that exceeded Anthropic’s flagship Opus 4.8 by most of the benchmarks, demonstrating that China has significantly narrowed its gap with the US in frontier AI."}],[{"start":72.30000000000001,"text":"The leading Chinese models from Moonshot as well as DeepSeek are so-called open-weight, which allow users to download to their local servers and customise to their particular needs. Meanwhile, leading US models from Anthropic and OpenAI are closed."}],[{"start":88.45000000000002,"text":"MofCom has also sought views on possible restrictions that would prevent overseas chipmakers including Qualcomm and TSMC from producing advanced semiconductors based on designs developed by Chinese companies such as Huawei, Alibaba and ByteDance, according to the people. "}],[{"start":106.50000000000001,"text":"Potential restrictions could also be imposed on the overseas acquisition of strategic technology groups in areas such as agentic AI, the people said. This is mainly to address a loophole that Beijing believes to have led to Meta’s $2bn acquisition of Manus, a deal that was subsequently ordered to be unwound by Chinese authorities."}],[{"start":124.70000000000002,"text":"The new measures could be incorporated into the next revision of China’s catalogue of technologies prohibited or restricted from export, the people said, reflecting Beijing’s growing confidence that it has established a global lead in some areas of AI."}],[{"start":138.4,"text":"Most of the proposals are still under discussion, with regulators weighing industry feedback before making a final decision, according to the people. "}],[{"start":147.25,"text":"They added that tech companies have told regulators that some of these tighter measures would slow down their AI development and hurt China’s potential to win the technology race."}],[{"start":157.3,"text":"The catalogue is one of China’s three main export control regimes, alongside two control lists covering dual-use items. Its most recent revision in 2025 added several lithium-ion battery manufacturing technologies to the list of restricted exports, building on existing controls over strategically important technologies such as rare earth extraction and processing. "}],[{"start":180.4,"text":"The update being discussed and negotiated would be the most significant in years, according to the people."}],[{"start":186.15,"text":"MofCom, ByteDance, Alibaba, Zhipu and Huawei did not respond to requests for comment."}],[{"start":192.8,"text":"Additional reporting from Cheng Leng in Beijing"}],[{"start":203.00000000000003,"text":""}]],"url":"https://audio.ftcn.net.cn/album/a_1784620783_1859.mp3"}