Looking back

MOFCOM eases open-source AI exports; weights aren't named

(same topic as item 2 of the October 17 issue's main line and its From the archive section, now read in the original) Does Announcement No. 48 from China's Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM) cover open weights? MOFCOM's Q&A with reporters offers a clue. It says open-sourcing AI technology gets automatic licensing, so a basic filing is enough to export. The original doesn't say word for word whether open weights fall in that category. Our read is that they do. The October 17 issue said "the draft's main text doesn't say whether newly released weights must be registered first." The main text indeed doesn't say. The October 18 issue ran this item as a single line; today it runs in full. In the Q&A, MOFCOM's spokesperson says that open-sourcing AI technology and a few other kinds of technology export qualify for convenience measures such as automatic licensing, "in effect allowing export as soon as the filing is made" (our translation; MOFCOM Q&A with reporters, 2026-10-16).

Concept illustration: on a long beige tabletop, a small beige booth with a brown roof and windows stands at left, with a boxed label reading MOFCOM pointing to it by a line, and beside it a person in a brown shirt with a lanyard badge holds a sheet of grey-lined paper next to an upright red-and-white striped barrier arm on a dark grey post. At right, a red slatted crate sits on a four-wheeled flat cart with many sheets of paper standing upright in it above its rim, the front sheet showing a speech bubble and lines, and a boxed label reading OPEN SOURCE points to the crate by a line.

Annex 1's restricted category, "large AI model technology," sets three alternative thresholds, any one of which applies: "compute ≥10²⁶ floating-point operations," "parameters ≥2 trillion," and "capability at the globally leading level," the third defined as a top-10 global ranking in public evaluations by mainstream evaluation bodies (our translation; MOFCOM Announcement No. 48 and Annex 1). Our call: the third threshold, "global top ten," is the one most likely to catch current Chinese frontier models. Whether current models reach the first two thresholds has no public figures in the material found for this issue.

The original also says that "providing API calls, app/web interaction, SaaS applications, or lightweight local on-device deployment to foreign parties is outside the scope of large-model technology export management" (our translation). The original doesn't say how handing weights to an overseas third party for hosting is treated. New supporting evidence today: Rui Ma, a China tech analyst and founder of Tech Buzz China, wrote on October 18 that API, SaaS and lightweight on-device deployment are "explicitly excluded" (Rui Ma, 2026-10-18), consistent with the Q&A. This is a draft for public comment, with comments due by November 15; if the final version changes the thresholds, the final version governs.

Our read: watch how fast the filing goes for the next Chinese model in the global top ten, before that model is released. That pace will show whether China's supply of open weights slows. How we checked →

Source and checks

This item ran in the brief of Oct 19, 2026, alongside 9 other items. How we checked it, the quote checks and what was still missing that day are on that issue's How we checked page.

Cite this item

SecondSource (2026). "MOFCOM eases open-source AI exports; weights aren't named." https://secondsource.io/en/news/2026-10-19-5/. Accessed access date.