Two prominent Chinese artificial intelligence model developers, DeepSeek and MiniMax, have successfully completed the registration process introduced as part of the proposed update to the country's export technology catalog. Both companies have continued their operations by releasing open-source models and initiating international licensing.
This information was revealed on the evening of October 22nd via the Yuyuan Tantian account belonging to the state broadcaster China Media Group. These developments occur against the backdrop of a project to revise the Catalog of Prohibited or Restricted Export Technologies, which the Ministry of Commerce and the Ministry of Science and Technology put out for public comment on October 16th.
The draft changes included 23 items related to AI, covering large models, AI agents, computing clusters, and information processing. The catalog itself has already drawn attention, and this new information confirms that two leading model developers have already applied this process in practice.
It is important to note that registration differs from obtaining a restrictive license, and this catalog is currently a consultative draft, not a final list. According to the Ministry of Commerce, technologies that have already become publicly available through open-source releases or academic publications are proposed to be excluded from export regulation.
Automatic licensing is provided for cases where Chinese companies build and operate overseas data centers, as well as for joint research utilizing foreign resources; the ministry describes this process as being close to export after an application is submitted.
The Ministry has also defined the boundaries of how models reach users abroad. Providing a restricted model via API calls, applications, or web interfaces, as well as in the form of SaaS products or light local deployment on a device, is not considered the export of large model technology. However, local deployment of a restricted model abroad falls under export control, although placement on the company's own overseas cloud infrastructure may utilize automatic licensing.
The Ministry emphasized that the vast majority of AI technologies will remain freely exportable.
The practical steps taken by the companies are giving concrete shape to the process. As reported by Huxiu, DeepSeek opened its framework for large-scale inference, DeepInfer, and the accompanying deepseek-recipe toolkit on October 20th. MiniMax, meanwhile, set up an official application pathway for foreign regions previously excluded from its model licenses, including the United States, the European Union, the United Kingdom, and South Korea.
Under this approach, model weights remain open, but organizations in these regions must undergo compliance checks and obtain a license before deploying the models locally. For developers, this means that open weights, open source code, and API access will likely remain as they are, while local deployment of the most sensitive technologies abroad will require an application procedure. The discussion period for the catalog draft is still ongoing, and the final scope of regulation may change before it comes into effect.
