China to Restrict Open-Weights Model Exports

Having installed WPS Office and read the thing (PDF uploaded here: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8b/%E6%8B%9... ) I can say that the draft definitely needs some work, since e.g. it prohibits deepfake detection technology with precision and recall above 95%, but merely restricts it if precision and recall are above 98%. Presumably it was intended the other way around.

Footnote 2 promises automatic permission for open source, hosting on companies' own data centers abroad, cross-border chip manufacturing, joint R&D with foreign resources, and international standardization. This probably refers to Article 14 of the Foreign Trade Law. https://en.moj.gov.cn/2023-12/15/c_948360.htm#:~:text=to%20m...

So companies can continue to release weights for models with more than 10^26 FLOPS, 2T parameters or that rank in the top 10 worldwide, but they need to report this beforehand to receive their automatic export license, which might then get revoked if the department of foreign trade feels like this kind of capability shouldn't be given away for free.