China has been making big strides in its sprint to catch up with the American AI industry lately, thanks in large part to its focus on open source models, which have growing appeal for cash-strapped U.S. businesses. But that accessibility could soon be limited, as Beijing weighs the possibility of cutting off foreign access to the country’s top AI systems. Chinese state officials met with Chinese tech developers Alibaba, ByteDance, and Z.ai over the past month to discuss limitations on overseas access, according to a Tuesday report from Reuters. The limitations would reportedly apply to both open source and proprietary models, including those that have yet to be released. They could also place restrictions around which business entities could provide funding to Chinese AI startups. On Beijing’s orders last month, Meta cut off all operations and data-sharing with Manus, just around six months after it had acquired the Chinese-founded AI startup in a $2 billion deal. Many Chinese AI developers, meanwhile, have reportedly been cutting ties with U.S. chipmaker Nvidia in favor of Chinese silicon providers, following a commitment from Beijing to invest around 2 trillion yuan (equating to $294 billion) in domestic data center development over the next five years.