DeepSeek and MiniMax have cleared China's new registration procedures for taking AI technology overseas, according to an account affiliated with state broadcaster CCTV. The two companies can proceed with open-source releases and overseas licensing, offering an early sign of how Beijing intends to manage its expanding AI industry.

The news follows a week of uncertainty over China's proposed export controls. Beijing wants more oversight of strategically important technology, but it has also laid out routes for companies to keep selling and sharing AI abroad.

Yuyuan Tantian, the CCTV-affiliated account, disclosed the companies' progress in an October 22 post. Reuters reported the approvals on October 23 and said neither company had immediately responded to requests for comment.

China adds a checkpoint, with routes through it

The Commerce Ministry and Ministry of Science and Technology proposed the changes on October 16. They cover 40 technologies across AI, biotechnology and solar power, including 23 AI technologies involving large models, agents, computing clusters and information processing.

The proposed additions to the export-control catalog remain under consultation. A temporary requirement to register covered technology exports before they happen took effect immediately, including exports already underway but not yet completed.

In its October 16 explanation, the Commerce Ministry said, in translation:

After the relevant measures formally take effect, the vast majority of artificial intelligence technologies will still be freely exportable.

It identified simplified procedures, including automatic licensing, for activities such as open-source releases and Chinese companies building and operating their own computing centers overseas. Technologies already in the public domain through open sourcing or academic publication would fall outside the proposed controls.

For developers, that makes the way a product reaches its customer important. Sending a restricted model abroad for local deployment can count as a technology export. Providing a service built on that model can be treated differently.

Selling access is different from transferring a model

The ministry's explanation draws that line explicitly. In translation, it said:

Where enterprises use restricted large models to provide external API access, app or web interactions, SaaS applications, or lightweight deployment on local devices, these situations do not fall within the scope of large-model technology export controls.

API access lets another company's software call a model over a network. Software as a service, or SaaS, delivers an application to customers without requiring them to take possession of the underlying model. Those distinctions leave Chinese developers several ways to reach overseas users.

The approvals therefore concern permission on the Chinese side of the transaction. Customers abroad still face their own governments' rules, a particularly important distinction for DeepSeek as Washington restricts its use in federal systems.

Washington is closing off government business

On October 19, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security disclosed an order directing federal civilian agencies to exclude and remove DeepSeek technology, including implementations supplied through other companies, according to VentureBeat.

The department cited national security and data-exposure concerns. Its order uses federal supply-chain security authority, making the identity of the underlying technology relevant even when a different vendor supplies the product.

The civilian-agency restriction is not a general ban on every American company or individual using DeepSeek. It does, however, narrow an important customer base and complicate decisions for suppliers whose products are destined for government systems.

Beijing's interim rules also require registration when covered technology developed in China is licensed for overseas use or its ownership or control passes to a foreign entity. The requirement therefore reaches transfers of intellectual property as well as model deployment.

China's consultation runs through November 15. In the meantime, exporters covered by the temporary registration requirement must provide details including the technology recipient, destination country or region, intended use and expected export value. Beijing is collecting those details while it decides the final boundaries of the new controls.