China Proposes Adding 40 AI, Solar and Biotech Technologies to Export Control List

China on Friday published a draft revision of its catalogue of technologies prohibited or restricted for export, proposing to add 40 items across artificial intelligence, photovoltaics, and biomedicine. Fourteen technologies would be barred from export outright; 26 would face new restrictions. Public comments are invited until 15 November.

Of the additions, 23 concern AI, 12 concern solar manufacturing, and five concern biomedicine. Prohibited items would include core technologies for large language models trained on sensitive national data, AI agents used in national defence or critical information infrastructure, certain perovskite and tandem solar-cell production methods, and selected cell-and-gene-therapy platforms. Restricted categories include polysilicon, silicon-wafer and solar-cell manufacturing techniques above defined capacity thresholds, heterojunction solar technology, and design methods for some advanced AI chips and memory devices.

A Ministry of Commerce spokesperson said the revision is routine, does not target any specific country or entity, and responds to the expanding use of these technologies in sensitive fields. The catalogue, first issued in 2001, was last revised in 2025. Interim pre-export registration requirements took effect the same day for the technologies covered by the proposal, applying to unfinished transactions including intellectual-property transfers and overseas licensing.

The move arrives as Chinese AI developers have narrowed performance gaps with leading U.S. systems and as the United States, India and others expand domestic solar manufacturing. Beijing has previously restricted exports of rare-earth processing technology and certain semiconductor tools. The new draft would extend similar controls to model weights and source code of systems that meet size or ranking thresholds, and to key steps in the solar supply chain that currently dominate global production.

Whether the final list matches the draft, and how stringently registration will be enforced, will not be known until after the comment period closes. The proposal signals an intent to retain control over technologies in which China holds a leading or near-leading position while competitors build alternative capacity.