346 Chinese AI services cleared mandatory government filings before launch. So much for "regulation strangles AI
Most debate about Chinese AI regulation assumes heavy rules must slow deployment. The filing record points the other way. Since the Generative AI Interim Measures took effect in August 2023, 346 services have cleared mandatory pre-launch filings with the Cyberspace Administration of China. Baidu cleared in the first approved batch and launched Ernie Bot to the public 16 days after the rules went live.
Within the CAC pipeline at least, the rules sorted the field rather than freezing it. Firms that built filing and clearance capability shipped fast. Firms that could not keep pace never reached the market. Whether that pattern holds beyond the filing system is a fair question, and I would take counterexamples seriously.
Full disclosure: I wrote a book on this (From Lab to Life: How AI Works in China, out August 4), built from Chinese regulatory texts, company filings, and technical papers from both sides of the Pacific. Link: [book website]
Happy to get into the mechanics of how the filing process works, since much of the English coverage gets them wrong.