In a move signaling the intensifying AI rivalry between Beijing and Washington, Chinese officials have held meetings with leading tech firms—including Alibaba, ByteDance, and Z.ai—to discuss potential restrictions on overseas access to the country’s most advanced AI models, both proprietary and open-weight versions. The discussions, led by China’s Ministry of Commerce, also considered classifying unauthorized disclosure or theft of AI technology as a national security offense and limiting foreign investment in domestic AI startups (investing.com).
These deliberations underscore how China, like the U.S., increasingly views frontier AI as a strategic asset warranting tighter control. The proposals reflect a broader trend toward treating cutting-edge AI as critical infrastructure that must be safeguarded from foreign exploitation (business-standard.com).
Meanwhile, in the United States, the Commerce Department has taken unprecedented steps to restrict foreign access to advanced AI models. In June 2026, it ordered Anthropic to block all foreign nationals—including its own noncitizen employees—from accessing its most powerful models, Fable 5 and Mythos 5, citing national security risks. The company subsequently disabled the models entirely due to the inability to verify user nationality in real time (scmp.com).
These export controls mark a significant escalation in U.S. policy, treating AI models as dual-use technologies subject to export licensing under the Export Control Reform Act of 2018. The move raises fundamental questions about the government’s role as a gatekeeper for AI services (washingtonpost.com).
The parallel developments in China and the U.S. reflect a growing consensus that advanced AI systems are not merely commercial products but strategic assets. As both nations tighten access—China by potentially limiting foreign use of its models, and the U.S. by restricting foreign access to its own—the global AI landscape is increasingly shaped by national security considerations rather than open innovation.