The company sent out an announcement to developers in China, informing them of its intentions to start blocking and restricting access to tools and software in the country starting in July.
“We are taking additional steps to block API traffic from regions where we do not support access to OpenAI’s services,” said a company representative.
The company's official terms and conditions state that the use of products like ChatGPT in countries where there is no official support for these services may result in blocking or limiting accounts.
At the same time, Chinese companies such as Alibaba and Tencent, which supports the Zhipu startup, published their own announcements calling on developers to switch to their own products.
China strongly encourages developers to develop artificial intelligence and create their own products that could compete with the offers of Western companies. The government considers these technologies to be critical to strengthening its economy and military.