China's Outbound Artificial Intelligence Strategy Starts with Models and Governance

China is the only country outside the United States that controls most of the critical components encompassing chips, models, energy, and raw materials in artificial intelligence technologies. The country's outbound AI strategy begins with the export of open-weight models and global governance moves before chips and hardware.

China aims to commercialize and geopolitically monetize the chain of cheap electricity and critical minerals, semiconductors, software, and models within its artificial intelligence ecosystem. In this context, while open-weight models ready for export are being offered to foreign markets, chips and software focusing on meeting domestic demand to reduce dependency on the U.S. have not yet reached the export stage.

The country also operates through structures such as the World Artificial Intelligence Cooperation Organization (WAICO) to strengthen global governance. Signed by 29 countries in July 2026, the member count of this organization reached 38 as of early September. On the other hand, China published draft regulations on October 16, 2026, restricting or banning the export of 23 types of state-of-the-art AI products, including large language models, agents, and computing clusters.