DeepSeek and MiniMax first to clear China's new AI export registration
The two Chinese model makers have completed filings under draft rules that put 23 AI technologies on Beijing's export control list, state media say, while open-source releases and API access stay largely free.
Key points
- DeepSeek and MiniMax are the first AI companies to say they have completed China's pre-export registration.
- Beijing's draft catalogue covers 23 AI-related technologies, from large models to computing clusters.
- Overseas use through APIs, websites and apps is outside the controls, the commerce ministry says.
DeepSeek and MiniMax have become the first Chinese artificial intelligence companies to clear Beijing’s new export registration for AI technology, a week after the government proposed putting large models, AI agents and computing clusters on its list of controlled exports.
Yuyuan Tantian, a social media account linked to the state broadcaster CCTV, said on Thursday evening that the two firms had completed pre-export registration and finished the paperwork for open-sourcing their models and licensing them for use overseas. No other AI company has publicly confirmed doing the same.
Both companies kept shipping. DeepSeek, based in Hangzhou, updated its V4.1 Flash model and released its internal inference framework as open source. Shanghai-based MiniMax released its M3.1 model as open source on Friday.
What Beijing is controlling
On 16 October the Ministry of Commerce and the Ministry of Science and Technology put out for comment a revised Catalogue of Technologies Prohibited or Restricted from Export, a list first drawn up in 2001 and revised several times since. The new draft adds 23 AI-related technologies, among them large models, AI agents, computing power clusters and information processing, as well as AI chip design and high-speed interconnects.
The catalogue singles out large models trained on core or important data and offered as services abroad. The tests for what counts include the amount of computing used, parameter counts above 2 trillion and whether a model ranks in the global top ten for capability. Some uses in sensitive sectors move from restricted to prohibited.
The registration step took effect at once. Companies must file with the Ministry of Commerce before carrying out a covered deal, which includes transferring ownership of a technology, licensing it overseas or changing control of it in favour of a foreign entity.
What stays open
The ministry has gone to some lengths to say what is not covered. A spokesperson said overseas access to Chinese models through APIs, websites and mobile apps falls outside the controls, as do software-as-a-service products and light on-device deployments. Open-source releases can qualify for fast-track automatic licensing, which may allow a model to be exported as soon as it is reported.
Yuyuan Tantian said the aim was to clarify where the limits lie rather than to stop Chinese AI technology going abroad, and that most AI technologies would remain freely exportable once the rules are final. Liu Hongmei, a lawyer at Beijing Dacheng Law Offices, noted that technologies on the prohibited list will not be exportable at all once the catalogue takes effect. No date has been set for that.
For developers and companies outside China, including in India, who call DeepSeek or MiniMax models through their APIs or download their open weights, the rules as drafted change little. The weight of the regime falls on deals that hand over the technology itself.
A week of pressure
The filings come days after the United States Department of Homeland Security ordered federal civilian agencies, on Tuesday, to remove DeepSeek and tools built on it. Beijing called the order discriminatory.
The comment period on the draft catalogue is under way. Officials say they began preparing the rules in the first half of the year after consulting research institutes, industry bodies and leading companies.