Policy & Regulation

Monday, October 26, 2026

GEOPOLITICSPOLICY
China Reserves Right to Counter US Plan to Widen AI Investment Curbs
China’s Commerce Ministry called the draft discriminatory and said it breaks a leaders’ consensus; the US plan would ban investment in any Chinese AI developer.

GEOPOLITICSPOLICY
DeepSeek and MiniMax Clear China’s New AI Export Registration, State Media Says
A CCTV-affiliated account says both labs have registered and completed open-source releases and overseas licensing under rules covering 23 AI technologies.
POLICYSOCIETY
China’s State Council Issues 18-Task Guideline to Make AI Adoption Employment-Friendly
Signed October 16, the guideline sends core AI industries east and data labeling inland, and adds job-risk reviews for AI projects that may cut many jobs.
GEOPOLITICSPOLICY
US Treasury Proposes Wider Outbound Investment Curbs on China AI, Chips and Biotech
The draft would bar covered US investment in any Chinese AI developer, adds biotech and hypersonics, and takes public comments until December 7, 2026.
CHIPS & COMPUTEPOLICY
China’s Five-Year Informatization Plan Pushes Advanced Chipmaking and Embodied AI
The Central Cyberspace Affairs Commission’s 2026–2030 plan sets 12 targets, including lifting smart terminal and AI agent adoption from 40% to over 90%.
APPLIED AIPOLICY
Shanghai Plan Targets 85% AI Use in Industrial Services by 2028
The city’s economy commission also aims for 10 AI-native unicorns and offers grants of up to RMB20 million for design, inspection and maintenance tools.

APPLIED AIPOLICY
MIIT-Led Five-Year Plan Calls for AI-Native Basic Products Across China’s Industrial Base
Eight agencies set 22 tasks in seven areas to bring China’s components, materials and basic software to an internationally advanced level by 2030.

POLICY
China Puts Companies in Charge of Turning Research Into Industry, From Chips to AI
A joint Party and State Council directive with 17 measures names integrated circuits and machine tools for breakthroughs and calls for a bond-market tech board.

APPLIED AIPOLICY
MIIT Drafts New Smart-Manufacturing Policy to Push AI Agents Into China’s Factories
The ministry will validate factory AI agents for scheduling, defect detection and maintenance one by one; China has over 13,000 advanced-level smart factories.

APPLIED AIPOLICY
China’s Commerce Ministry Leads Nine-Agency Plan to Put AI Across Retail and Logistics
Eighteen measures name commercial AI agents, embodied AI and brain-computer interfaces, with the central bank and cyberspace regulator among the signatories.
POLICYROBOTICS
MIIT to Build Monitoring System for China’s Humanoid Robot Industry
The ministry also wants commercial firms to open sites for robot trials, as products enter more than 300 scenarios and first-half output tops 40,000 units.

APPLIED AIPOLICY
China’s AI Plus campaign shifts to scaling as nearly half of uses stall
Li Qiang’s cabinet put pilot validation and computing-power and electricity coordination on its AI agenda after MIIT listed 1,000-plus factory AI scenarios.
GEOPOLITICSPOLICY
China’s draft AI export curbs bring adjustment costs for developers expanding abroad
MOFCOM says API, app and SaaS access would not count as a large-model export, while local overseas deployment of a restricted model falls under export control.

APPLIED AIPOLICY
China’s TCM plan makes AI part of its health agenda
The five-year blueprint calls for high-quality TCM AI data sets, smart hospitals and diagnostic-assistance tools for grassroots providers.

BIG TECHPOLICY
Tencent Reframes Amap Agent Episode as a Third-Party Model Control Question
Tencent has supplied the missing context that turns an earlier, unsettling pattern of Amap requests into a more practical question for anyone testing web-enabled AI agents: what happens when an evaluation environment lets a model reach outside the test itself?
POLICYCHIPS & COMPUTE
Taiwan Prepares a New AI Hardware Checkpoint for China
Taiwan is preparing a change that could put its own law directly into the path of China-bound AI hardware shipments. The immediate development is not a new ban or an operating permit system.
POLICYGEOPOLITICS
China’s AI Export Consultation Puts Technology Transfers Under a New Lens
China has opened a consultation that could reshape how specified AI technology moves across its borders, while immediately requiring registration for covered transfers. The practical change is not a shutdown of Chinese models for overseas users.

BIG TECHPOLICY
More Than 150 Apps Reportedly Opt Out of Doubao Autonomous Operation
More than 150 apps, including WeChat and Taobao, have opted out of ByteDance’s Doubao phone assistant autonomous operation, Caixin Global reported. The immediate consequence is limited but plain: the reported autonomous operation cannot be assumed to include apps in the opt-out group. Caixin’s report describes a defined app decision.

POLICYSOCIETY
China’s Embodied-AI Ethics Report Focuses on Machines That Act
China has added a new governance lens for AI systems that can affect the physical world. A report released by the National AI Standardization General Group identifies risks ranging from physical safety and privacy to accountability, then connects them to a framework that follows embodied intelligence from design through decommissioning.
POLICYAPPLIED AI
China’s Qiusuo 4.0 Puts AI Evaluation Closer to Real Workloads
China has published an AI evaluation framework that tries to make a familiar problem more practical: judging a system’s capabilities is one thing, but deciding whether it can work in a power network, hospital, or steel plant is another. Qiusuo 4.0, formally released on Oct.