China's Commerce and Science Ministries draft export controls covering frontier models and agents

China's First Frontier AI Export Controls: Mofcom Announcement No. 48

China's Ministry of Commerce and Ministry of Science and Technology issued Announcement No. 48 on October 16, 2026, proposing 40 new technologies for export bans or restrictions, 23 of them AI-related. Interim export registration rules already apply. The draft catalog takes comments until November 15, 2026. Frontier model thresholds include at least 10^26 FLOPs of training compute, at least 2 trillion parameters, or a top-10 global ranking at export time. Agents get separate capability thresholds.

Why it matters: The draft puts locally deployed restricted models abroad under export management, so firms self-hosting models face supplier licensing and update compliance.