Bloomberg: China "restricts top AI talent from leaving the country," executives at Alibaba and DeepSeek forced to surrender passports

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The US-China tech war has fully escalated from the "chip war" to a "talent war"! According to a Bloomberg report today (26th), Chinese authorities are expanding overseas travel restrictions targeting the country's top AI talent, with the scope of controls now extending to private enterprises such as Alibaba and renowned startup DeepSeek. Targeted core executives and researchers must obtain strict official approval before traveling abroad, and are even forced to surrender their passports to be held by their companies. This move aims to prevent the leakage of state-level AI secrets, but outside observers worry that this is tantamount to treating human brains like hardware devices subject to national lockdown, and could severely stifle international exchange and innovation capabilities in China's AI sector. (Previous context: Nvidia's Jensen Huang: The Chinese market will eventually open up to American AI chips) (Background supplement: Anthropic report: The 2028 battle for AI supremacy — if the US fails to maintain its computing power advantage, it could be overtaken by China) Against the backdrop of increasingly intense US-China tech rivalry, the Chinese government's means of protecting core technologies are extending comprehensively from "physical chip hardware" to "the human brain." According to today's (May 26, 2026) reports from foreign media including Bloomberg, China is further expanding overseas travel restrictions targeting top artificial intelligence (AI) professionals. This policy has systematically spread from previously targeting state-owned institutions or specific individual cases (such as the earlier Manus AI founder) to a vast range of private enterprises. Core personnel at tech giants such as Alibaba Group and the trending AI startup DeepSeek are all on the list of those affected. The enforcement of this control measure has been quite forceful. The report indicates that Chinese government agencies are requiring specific individuals involved in advanced AI R&D and deemed to be of "strategic importance" to obtain formal official approval before departing the country. - Targeting core brains: The targets of control are not based on job titles or companies, but rather on "individual strategic importance," covering AI startup founders, core researchers, and corporate executives. - Centralized passport management: Affected AI talent are frequently required to hand over their personal passports to their employers (companies) for centralized safekeeping. The official reason given is to prevent potential access to and leakage of national strategic or commercial secrets. This approach of combining corporate internal policies with strong government guidance shows that Chinese authorities have come to regulate AI talent as "national-level assets" on par with advanced semiconductor hardware or model code. Behind this unprecedented strict talent control lies Beijing's anxiety and determination to protect advanced technology and counter American AI hegemony. Under the dual pressures of the United States imposing strict AI chip export controls and concerns about top talent being poached overseas with huge sums of money, the Chinese government's core objective is to prevent technology leakage, brain drain, and the loss of intellectual property (IP). In fact, data shows that the number of AI talent flowing from China to the United States in recent years has already seen a significant decline. Reactions from the market and various sectors to this talent travel ban have been polarized: - National security supporters: Believe that in the current geopolitical environment, this is a pragmatic move to protect national strategic capabilities, consistent with the regulatory logic applied to other critical technologies. - Tech innovation concerns: Critics strongly worry that this practice of "physically isolating" researchers could severely stifle international technical cooperation. In the extremely competitive global AI field, restricting free movement may deter overseas elites from returning, thereby slowing down the overall pace of China's AI development. - Investment market risks: For investors, this policy highlights the potentially huge risks for China's AI industry in cross-border transactions, corporate mergers and acquisitions, and the recruitment of senior talent. This restrictive measure fully aligns with the Chinese government's overall trend in recent years of strengthening control over "strategic industries," while simultaneously vigorously supporting domestic AI enterprises such as DeepSeek through state power. As the talent war escalates, the chasm of US-China tech decoupling may become increasingly difficult to bridge.

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Published:2026-05-26 13:21:42

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