DeepSeek and MiniMax have won Chinese state approval for global use of their AI models, according to a post on Thursday, October 22, by Yuyuan Tantian, a social media account affiliated with state broadcaster CCTV, Reuters reported on October 23. A follow-up post on Friday said overseas users had urged other Chinese open-source labs to follow suit.

Neither DeepSeek nor MiniMax replied to Reuters' requests for comment, and no official document has been published — so the Wire is carrying this as a rumor until the labs or a regulator confirm it directly. State-media-affiliated accounts have trailed Chinese AI policy moves before, but they are not the approval itself.

The timing is the story. China proposed export controls on 23 AI technologies on October 16, covering overseas deployment of models, agents and computing clusters, while the commerce ministry said most AI technology would stay exportable, with simplified licensing for open-source exports. An approval for the country's two best-known open-weight labs would be the first clear sign of where that line is being drawn.