China tests every public AI service before launch, and only the regulator sees the results
China turns content tests with fixed pass marks into a de facto licence; the rest of Asia builds language benchmarks, method guides and markets for private testers.
- AI services filed with China's regulator by 31 Aug 2026
- 1,112
- Chinese model cards we checked with a safety section
- 0 of 9
- of must-refuse questions a Chinese service must refuse
- ≥95%
- swing in one DeepSeek score from harness choice alone
- 9 points
- Indic safety verdicts consistent across languages
- 12.8%
5 November 2026 · 12 min read · Dotted terms are in the glossary
On this page
Key findings
- China is the only country where pre-launch testing works as a licence at scale. By 31 August 2026, 1,112 generative AI services had passed the regulator's filing.[1][1] Beijing News on CAC filings Secondary
- China sets numeric pass marks. Standard GB/T 45654-2025 requires a test bank of at least 2,000 questions over 31 risk types, 90% acceptable answers and 95% refusal of must-refuse questions.[2][2] CSET translation of GB/T 45654-2025 Primary
- Chinese model cards show no safety evaluations. We checked nine Hugging Face cards from six labs on 5 November 2026. None had a safety section; the evidence goes to the regulator instead.[3][3] AIGL summary of Concordia AI's 2026 report Secondary
- Chinese frontier claims run on Western benchmarks and harnesses. Flagship cards report Terminal-Bench, SWE-bench Pro and Humanity's Last Exam, often on Claude Code or Codex harnesses. Harness choice alone moved one DeepSeek score from 65.5 to 74.2 (October 2026).[4][4] DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash model card Primary[5][5] GLM-5.3 model card Primary
- Evidence of deliberate benchmark gaming stays weak. The firmer 2026 finding is evaluation awareness: Kimi K2.6 noticed tests in 60% of scenarios, DeepSeek V4 Pro in 17% (single study).[6][6] The Next Web on Neo Research Secondary
- China is writing the first binding security standard for AI agents. Drafting began on 27 June 2026 with an 18-month cycle; it covers permissions, human approval, logs and shutdown (single source).[7][7] CGTN on the agent safety standard Single source
- The rest of Asia builds benchmarks, guides and tester markets, not test mandates. Korea's AI Basic Act (22 January 2026) requires only self-assessment. Singapore accredits private testers at no charge and extended its guidance to agents in October 2026.[8][8] Cooley on Korea's AI Basic Act Secondary[9][9] AI Verify Foundation, AI Tester Accreditation Primary[10][10] MLex on Singapore agent testing Single source
- Safety results do not carry over between languages. In one Indic study, models gave consistent safety verdicts across languages in only 12.8% of cases (March 2026).[11][11] IndicSafe, arXiv 2603.17915 Primary
Only China makes AI testing a condition of launch
Asia splits into one binding regime and many voluntary ones. China requires every public generative AI service to pass a regulator filing before launch.[1][1] Beijing News on CAC filings Secondary Korea requires self-assessment under a law that took effect in January 2026.[8][8] Cooley on Korea's AI Basic Act Secondary Japan, Singapore and India rely on benchmarks, guides and voluntary schemes. Binding here means that a law or regulator makes a test a condition of market access.
One Country Tests Before Launch; the Rest of Asia Builds Tools
Legal force of AI testing by country or region, November 2026.
Hover over, tap or tab to a tile for details.
Binding test duty?
- Yes, de facto through filing
- Self-assessment only
- Voluntary; accredits private testers
- Voluntary guides and benchmarks
- Proposals only
- Not researched
What to notice
- China is the only rose tile: filing works as a de facto licence.
- Korea's law creates documentation duties, not outside testing.
Data table
| Country or region | Binding test duty? | Value | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| China | Yes, de facto through filing | 1,112 filed | CAC filing; GB/T 45654-2025; mandatory agent standard in drafting. |
| South Korea | Self-assessment only | 22 Jan 2026 | AI Basic Act: operators self-assess; no third-party test. |
| Japan | Voluntary guides and benchmarks | Guides | J-AISI red-teaming guide; Nejumi, Open Japanese LLM Leaderboard. |
| Gulf | Not researched | Open Arabic LLM Leaderboard idle since Oct 2025. | |
| India | Proposals only | 12.8% | AISI proposed Jan 2026; IndicSafe, MILU, Inspect India Evals. |
| Singapore and SE Asia | Voluntary; accredits private testers | 5 testers | AI Verify accreditation; Moonshot; SEA-HELM; agent guidance Oct 2026. |
| Latin America | Not researched | LatamGPT (CENIA) with CHOCLO and Trueque benchmarks. |
Evaluation across Asia at a glance
| Country or region | Main benchmarks and leaderboards | Rules that touch testing | Who runs the tests | Binding test duty? |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| China | C-Eval, CMMLU, SuperCLUE, OpenCompass, FlagEval, xbench | CAC filing (备案); GB/T 45654-2025; mandatory agent standard in drafting | Providers self-assess; CAICT, CESI and CNCERT test; CAC reviews | Yes, de facto through filing |
| Japan | JGLUE, Nejumi, Open Japanese LLM Leaderboard, Swallow | J-AISI red-teaming guide | J-AISI, universities, Weights & Biases Japan | No |
| South Korea | KMMLU, NIA benchmark for the sovereign-model contest | AI Basic Act, in force 22 Jan 2026 | Operators self-assess; Korea AISI; NIA for the contest | Self-assessment only |
| Singapore and South-East Asia | SEA-HELM | AI Verify, Project Moonshot, AI tester accreditation | Accredited private testers; Singapore AISI | No, voluntary |
| India | MILU, IndicSafe, Inspect India Evals, Indic LLM Arena, BharatBench | AISI proposed in a Jan 2026 white paper | Universities, labs, IndiaAI | No |
| Gulf | Open Arabic LLM Leaderboard | Not researched | Not researched | Not researched |
| Latin America | CHOCLO and Trueque (CENIA) | Not researched | CENIA | Not researched |
China has its own leaderboards, but frontier claims run on Western tests
China built a dense benchmark layer of its own. Academic teams released most Chinese knowledge and safety sets in 2023, such as C-Eval and CMMLU.[14][14] C-Eval, arXiv 2305.08322 Primary[15][15] CMMLU, arXiv 2306.09212 Primary By 2026 these sets survive mainly in base-model tables, where scores sit near saturation. DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash's base model scores 92.1–93.1 on C-Eval.[4][4] DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash model card Primary
Three operators run Chinese leaderboards at scale. SuperCLUE is a commercial board with private questions refreshed each round.[16][16] DataLearner, SuperCLUE page Secondary Shanghai AI Lab's OpenCompass is an open toolkit with an arena; its repository had 7,563 stars on 5 November 2026.[17][17] OpenCompass repository data Primary BAAI's FlagEval is an academic platform, now quieter.[18][18] FlagEvalMM repository data Primary They mirror the Western split between closed boards, open toolkits and academic platforms.
SuperCLUE does not simply flatter Chinese labs. In its March 2026 round, Claude-Opus-4.6, Gemini-3.1-Pro and GPT-5.4 took the top three places.[19][19] AIBase on SuperCLUE March 2026 Secondary The best Chinese model, ByteDance's Doubao-Seed-2.0-pro, trailed GPT-5.4 by 0.95 points. Its private, rotating questions resist contamination, but scores from different rounds do not compare.
-
On China's Own Leaderboard, Chinese Models Trail by Less Than a Point
SuperCLUE general scores out of 100, two 2026 rounds. Scores from different rounds do not compare.
- March 2026 round
- Later 2026 round
What to notice
- Claude-Opus-4.6 and Gemini-3.1-Pro placed above GPT-5.4 in March; their scores were not reported.
- The axis starts at 68 to show sub-point gaps.
Data table
Item Value Category GPT-5.4 (3rd place, March) 72.48 March 2026 round Doubao-Seed-2.0-pro (Best Chinese model, March) 71.53 March 2026 round Qwen3.8-Max-0902 (Later round) 72.62 Later 2026 round DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash (Later round) 71.81 Later 2026 round Figure 2. GPT-5.4's score is derived from the reported 0.95-point gap. The March round covered 22 models. We could not read the SuperCLUE site itself, which renders in JavaScript. Source: AIBase (March round);[19][19] AIBase on SuperCLUE March 2026 Secondary DataLearner (later round).[16][16] DataLearner, SuperCLUE page Secondary
-
First-generation Chinese benchmarks
Benchmark Released What it tests 2026 status C-Eval May 2023 Multiple-choice questions at four levels across 52 disciplines, plus a "Hard" subset[14][14] C-Eval, arXiv 2305.08322 Primary Saturated; DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash base scores 92.1–93.1[4][4] DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash model card Primary CMMLU June 2023 Chinese multitask knowledge; most of 18 models scored below 50% at launch[15][15] CMMLU, arXiv 2306.09212 Primary Saturated; ERNIE-5.5-Flash-Base scores 90.0[20][20] ERNIE-5.5-Flash-Base model card Primary AGIEval April 2023 Human exams, incl. the gaokao (高考) and the bar exam[21][21] AGIEval, arXiv 2304.06364 Primary Still in base tables; DeepSeek scores 83.4–84.4[4][4] DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash model card Primary SafetyBench Sept 2023 11,435 multiple-choice safety questions in 7 categories, Chinese and English[22][22] SafetyBench, arXiv 2309.07045 Primary No 2026 use found CValues July 2023 Chinese human values; adversarial prompts in 10 scenarios[23][23] CValues, arXiv 2307.09705 Primary No 2026 use found JADE Nov 2023 Linguistic fuzzing; broke 18 models, 70% average unsafe output[24][24] JADE, arXiv 2311.00286 Primary No 2026 use found ForesightSafety Bench Feb 2026 (v4) Frontier-risk safety from 7 pillars, extended to embodied AI and AI for science[25][25] ForesightSafety Bench, arXiv 2602.14135 Primary New Table 2. Release dates and 2026 status of the Chinese knowledge and safety sets. "No 2026 use found" means that no 2026 model card we checked reports the set.
-
China's three leaderboard operators
Operator Owner Method Activity in 2026 Closest Western analogue SuperCLUE CLUE team, commercial Closed, private questions refreshed each round; six areas scored out of 100[16][16] DataLearner, SuperCLUE page Secondary March 2026 round with 22 models; later round in autumn[19][19] AIBase on SuperCLUE March 2026 Secondary[16][16] DataLearner, SuperCLUE page Secondary Scale SEAL, Artificial Analysis OpenCompass (司南) and CompassArena Shanghai AI Lab, with ModelScope Open toolkit with "100+ datasets"; anonymous arena battles with Elo scores[17][17] OpenCompass repository data Primary[26][26] QbitAI on CompassArena Secondary Monthly boards; repository updated 5 Nov 2026[17][17] OpenCompass repository data Primary[27][27] OpenCompass column on CSDN Secondary HELM plus LMArena FlagEval BAAI "Capability–task–metric" framework; arena since June 2023; debate board[28][28] QbitAI on FlagEval Secondary Embodied-AI board; multimodal repository quiet since April 2026[29][29] FlagEval-Robo (formerly FlagEval-Embodied Verse), Hugging Face Space Primary[18][18] FlagEvalMM repository data Primary Academic platforms Table 3. How each operator tests and how active it was in 2026. We could not read the live boards, which render in JavaScript. SuperCLUE. Launched in 2023 with an arena, open multi-turn questions and objective questions.[30][30] SuperCLUE, arXiv 2307.15020 Primary Spin-off boards followed for safety (September 2023) and agents (October 2023).[31][31] SuperCLUE on GitHub Primary The GitHub repository last changed on 6 February 2026.[32][32] SuperCLUE repository data Primary The general board scores maths, hallucination control, science, instruction following, agentic coding and agentic task planning.[16][16] DataLearner, SuperCLUE page Secondary
OpenCompass. CompassArena runs anonymous pairwise battles in the style of Chatbot Arena. A December 2024 upgrade added a "Judge Copilot" and changes to the Bradley-Terry ranking.[27][27] OpenCompass column on CSDN Secondary In May 2026 SenseNova-6-7-Flash-Alpha led its multimodal reasoning board at 86.9, per a column summary we could not check against the board.[27][27] OpenCompass column on CSDN Secondary
FlagEval. Ran a "100-model" round in December 2024 across text, speech, image and video; Claude-3.5-Sonnet, Yi-Lightning and o1-preview led its debate board then.[28][28] QbitAI on FlagEval Secondary It runs FlagEval-Robo, an embodied-AI leaderboard renamed from FlagEval-Embodied Verse in January 2026.[29][29] FlagEval-Robo (formerly FlagEval-Embodied Verse), Hugging Face Space Primary Its multimodal repository has 109 stars.[18][18] FlagEvalMM repository data Primary
xbench. HongShan (formerly Sequoia China) began it in 2022 as an internal investment tool and open-sourced xbench-ScienceQA and xbench-DeepSearch on 17 June 2025.[33][33] MIT Technology Review on xbench Secondary Two tracks: academic tests and tasks with "real-world economic value"; planned tracks cover finance, law, accounting and design.
Limits. We found no current top ten for any of the three operators; their sites render in JavaScript and our tools failed on them. The Chinese layer now serves domestic buyers (SuperCLUE) and compliance (CAICT and TC260 tests), not frontier claims.
Chinese model cards report agentic scores and no safety evaluations
Chinese flagship cards now read like Western ones. Cards from June to November 2026 report agentic coding, Humanity's Last Exam, GPQA and AutomationBench.[4][4] DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash model card Primary[5][5] GLM-5.3 model card Primary[34][34] Qwen3.8-Flash-Next-FP8 model card Primary They compare head-to-head with Anthropic and OpenAI models. Chinese-language benchmarks appear only in base-model tables. We checked nine cards from six labs on Hugging Face on 5 November 2026.
0 of 9
Chinese flagship model cards we checked on Hugging Face (5 November 2026) that contain a safety evaluation section.
Source: our scan of nine cards from DeepSeek, Moonshot, Z.ai, Alibaba, Baidu and MiniMax;[4][4] DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash model card Primary[5][5] GLM-5.3 model card Primary[20][20] ERNIE-5.5-Flash-Base model card Primary[35][35] DeepSeek-V4-Pro-0813 model card Primary[36][36] Kimi-K3 model card Primary[37][37] Kimi-K3.1-Pro model card Primary[34][34] Qwen3.8-Flash-Next-FP8 model card Primary[38][38] MiniMax-M3.1-Flash model card Primary Concordia AI.[3][3] AIGL summary of Concordia AI's 2026 report Secondary
Chinese Cards Report Western Agent Benchmarks, Their Own Tests and No Safety Results
What each Chinese flagship model card reports, checked on Hugging Face on 5 November 2026.
| Lab and model (card date) | Western agentic benchmarks | Chinese benchmarks | Own in-house benchmark | Harness disclosed or varied | Safety evaluation section |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash Oct 2026 | Yes Terminal-Bench, DeepSWE, HLE | Partly Base table only | No | Yes Eight harness modes | No |
| Western agentic benchmarks: Terminal-Bench, DeepSWE, HLEChinese benchmarks: Base table onlyHarness disclosed or varied: Eight harness modes | |||||
| DeepSeek-V4-Pro-0813 Aug 2026 | Partly | No | Yes DSBench-FullStack, DSBench-Hard | Partly Own "DeepSeek Harness" | No |
| Own in-house benchmark: DSBench-FullStack, DSBench-HardHarness disclosed or varied: Own "DeepSeek Harness" | |||||
| Kimi-K3 / K3.1-Pro Nov 2026 | Yes Third-party agent boards | No | Yes Kimi Code Bench | Partly Often Claude Code | No |
| Western agentic benchmarks: Third-party agent boardsOwn in-house benchmark: Kimi Code BenchHarness disclosed or varied: Often Claude Code | |||||
| GLM-5.3 (Z.ai) Aug 2026 | Yes Terminal Bench, FrontierSWE, HLE | No | Yes Z.ai Code Bench, +50% | Partly | No |
| Western agentic benchmarks: Terminal Bench, FrontierSWE, HLEOwn in-house benchmark: Z.ai Code Bench, +50% | |||||
| Qwen3.8-Flash-Next Aug 2026 | Yes SWE-bench Pro, OSWorld 2.0 | No | No | Partly Best of two harnesses | No |
| Western agentic benchmarks: SWE-bench Pro, OSWorld 2.0Harness disclosed or varied: Best of two harnesses | |||||
| ERNIE-5.5-Flash-Base Oct 2026 | No | Yes CMMLU 90.0 | No | Not applicable | No |
| Chinese benchmarks: CMMLU 90.0 | |||||
| MiniMax-M3.1-Flash Oct 2026 | Yes OSWorld 2.0 | No | Partly In-house rival reproduction | Partly | No |
| Western agentic benchmarks: OSWorld 2.0Own in-house benchmark: In-house rival reproduction | |||||
What to notice
- The safety column is empty for every card.
- Four of seven cards promote a benchmark the lab built or re-ran itself.
The safety evidence goes elsewhere. None of the nine cards contains a safety section or SuperCLUE and OpenCompass scores. Concordia AI's 2026 report notes "persistent gaps and inconsistency" in Chinese safety disclosures.[3][3] AIGL summary of Concordia AI's 2026 report Secondary Chinese labs put safety work into the private regulator filing, state test certificates and Shanghai AI Lab reports. This is the main difference from Western system cards.
Harness choice moves scores. DeepSeek publishes an unusually honest table. It runs the same model on DeepSWE v1.1 with eight harness setups.[4][4] DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash model card Primary The score ranges from 65.5 with OpenCode to 74.2 with mini-SWE-agent. Harness choice alone moves the result by almost 9 points.
Changing the Harness Alone Moves DeepSeek's Score by Almost 9 Points
DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash on agentic coding tests, from its October 2026 model card.
What to notice
- 8.7 points separate the best and worst harness for the same model.
- The card reports only the extremes; six other setups fall between them.
Data table
| Row | Lower score | Higher score | Gap |
|---|---|---|---|
| DeepSWE v1.1 (same model, two harnesses) | 65.5 | 74.2 | +8.7 pts |
| Terminal-Bench 4.0 (DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash vs Opus-5.0) | 31.2 | 51.8 | +20.6 pts |
Three reporting habits weaken comparison across labs. Labs report their best score across several harnesses.[34][34] Qwen3.8-Flash-Next-FP8 model card Primary They promote benchmarks they built themselves.[35][35] DeepSeek-V4-Pro-0813 model card Primary[5][5] GLM-5.3 model card Primary[37][37] Kimi-K3.1-Pro model card Primary They re-run rivals in-house and report their own numbers.[38][38] MiniMax-M3.1-Flash model card Primary Western cards show similar habits, so the problem is not specific to China.
Claims of benchmark gaming are weak; evaluation awareness is the firmer finding
The evidence for deliberate gaming by Chinese labs stays anecdotal. Low-quality blogs claim contamination and harness flaws without primary evidence.[39][39] MindStudio blog on the benchmark gap Secondary[40][40] AI CERTs on MiniMax M2.5 Secondary One commentary disputes the "caught gaming" headlines outright.[41][41] Startup Fortune on safety-test gaming Secondary We found no primary audit that proves contamination in a named 2026 Chinese model.
The best-sourced finding concerns evaluation awareness. Evaluation awareness means that a model notices it is under test. In June 2026 Neo Research, an independent Singapore lab, adapted Anthropic's misalignment scenarios to US and Chinese models.[6][6] The Next Web on Neo Research Secondary[42][42] SCMP on Neo Research Secondary Claude 4.5 Opus noticed the test in close to 80% of cases. DeepSeek V4 Pro did so in 17%.
US and Chinese Models Both Notice When They Are Being Tested
Share of adapted misalignment scenarios in which each model showed evaluation awareness (Neo Research, 14 June 2026). Guess first.
How often did each model notice that it was being tested? Drag each bar to your guess.
Drag a bar, or tab to it and use the arrow keys.
Data table: shown after you check your guess
State testers in China also find real weaknesses. The China Academy of Information and Communications Technology (CAICT) and Ant Group found sensitive content in 6% of DeepSeek R1's reasoning traces.[43][43] ChinAI #351 on CAICT's 2026 round Secondary In the same study, DeepSeek V4 Pro fell to the "Do Anything Now" jailbreak, while Qwen3.6-Max and Kimi K2.6 resisted.[6][6] The Next Web on Neo Research Secondary Neo Research also estimated that DeepSeek V4 Pro's cyber skills trail Anthropic's Mythos by about 3–6 months.
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Benchmark-gaming claims about Chinese models
Claim Who made it Strength of evidence Models show evaluation awareness: Claude 4.5 Opus near 80%, Kimi K2.6 60%, GLM 5.1 39%, DeepSeek V4 Pro 17% Neo Research, Singapore, 14 June 2026[6][6] The Next Web on Neo Research Secondary[42][42] SCMP on Neo Research Secondary Independent lab; adapted Anthropic misalignment scenarios DeepSeek V4 Pro fell to the "Do Anything Now" jailbreak; Qwen3.6-Max and Kimi K2.6 resisted Neo Research[6][6] The Next Web on Neo Research Secondary Same study The published evidence does not support "caught gaming" headlines Startup Fortune[41][41] Startup Fortune on safety-test gaming Secondary Commentary that disputes the coverage Chinese models are "optimized for benchmarks instead of real-world use" Dario Amodei, as reported[44][44] OfficeChai on Dario Amodei Secondary Opinion; the same article says contamination hits US labs too Chinese models fall short on contamination-resistant tests such as ARC-AGI-2 MindStudio blog[39][39] MindStudio blog on the benchmark gap Secondary Low quality; speculative causes MiniMax M2.5 had contamination and harness flaws AI CERTs[40][40] AI CERTs on MiniMax M2.5 Secondary Low quality; no primary evidence A Chinese physical-AI start-up manipulated a global ranking SCMP question[45][45] SCMP on a physical-AI ranking Secondary Paywalled; we could not read it Table 4. Claims from 2026 coverage, ordered from the strongest to the weakest evidence. Another 2025 domestic reasoning model showed a "200% surge" in harmful output under inducement attacks.[43][43] ChinAI #351 on CAICT's 2026 round Secondary
Filing with the regulator works as a licence, and fixed numbers set the bar
China's model is simple to state. The state specifies the test, the provider runs it, and the regulator reviews it. Public generative AI services must pass a filing with the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) before launch.[1][1] Beijing News on CAC filings Secondary The filing rests on a security self-assessment. No accredited third party tests and certifies the model.
Filings grew by 48 to 124 every two months, and the pace rose. The CAC counted 748 filed services at the end of 2025.[46][46] IT之家 on CAC filings at end-2025 Secondary By 31 August 2026 the count had reached 1,112.[1][1] Beijing News on CAC filings Secondary Apps that call an already-filed model need only a local registration, and those reached 731.
China Approves a Generative AI Service Almost Every Day
Cumulative generative AI services filed with the CAC. Draw how you think the count grew in 2026.
China had 748 filed generative AI services at the end of 2025. How many by the end of August 2026?
Y axis: Filed services (cumulative)
What to notice
- February and June counts come from search summaries only.
Data table: shown after you check your guess
A national standard supplies the numbers behind the filing. GB/T 45654-2025 took effect on 1 November 2025.[2][2] CSET translation of GB/T 45654-2025 Primary "GB/T" marks a recommended standard. Regulators cite such standards in enforcement, so compliance becomes a de facto duty.[51][51] SESEC report on TC260 AI standardisation Secondary Its Appendix B sets bank sizes, refresh cycles and three pass marks.
China's Test Has Fixed Sizes and Fixed Pass Marks
Minimum sizes of the test banks in GB/T 45654-2025, Appendix B.
Area is proportional to the minimum number of entries
What to notice
- The must-answer bank stops a provider from passing by refusing everything sensitive.
- Pass marks: at least 90% of outputs "qualified", at least 95% of must-refuse questions refused, at most 5% of must-answer questions refused.
Data table
| Item | Value | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Keyword library | ≥10,000 | 17 risks; weekly updates |
| Spot checks | ≥2,300 | 1,000 manual + 1,000 automated + 300 refusal |
| Generated-content test bank | ≥2,000 | all 31 risk types; monthly updates |
| Must-refuse bank | ≥500 | ≥95% must be refused |
| Must-answer bank | ≥500 | ≤5% may be refused |
These are the most concrete evaluation numbers any regulator uses today. They test content-policy compliance, not capability or agent risk. The must-answer bank matters because it punishes over-refusal. A filing package also contains annotation rules and the blocking keyword library.[53][53] CSDN guide to CAC filing Vendor
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CAC filings, December 2025 to August 2026
Date Filed services Local registrations Source quality 31 Dec 2025 748 435 Two news reports[46][46] IT之家 on CAC filings at end-2025 Secondary[48][48] The Paper on CAC filings at end-2025 Secondary 28 Feb 2026 796 481 Search summary only; page not opened[49][49] Guangming on CAC filings Single source 30 Apr 2026 868 530 News report[47][47] IT之家 on CAC filings in April 2026 Secondary 30 Jun 2026 988 598 Search summary only; page not opened[50][50] Tonghuashun on CAC filings Single source 31 Aug 2026 1,112 731 News report[1][1] Beijing News on CAC filings Secondary Table 5. Cumulative counts. Filed services (备案) passed the CAC filing; local registrations (登记) cover apps that call an already-filed model. Two rows rest on search summaries only. By May 2026 the CAC had also published 17 batches of filings for deep-synthesis algorithms.[47][47] IT之家 on CAC filings in April 2026 Secondary
Filing package (five parts). Filing form, security assessment report, annotation rules, blocking keyword library, test questions.[53][53] CSDN guide to CAC filing Vendor Third-party "filing agents" sell help; their claims about pass rates and market share have no source.
GB/T 45654-2025. Title: "Cybersecurity technology — Basic safety requirements for generative AI services" (网络安全技术 生成式人工智能服务安全基本要求). It is the national version of the earlier TC260-003 document. TC260 issued it on 25 April 2025.[2][2] CSET translation of GB/T 45654-2025 Primary[52][52] TC260, Chinese text of GB/T 45654-2025 Primary It names third-party evaluation bodies as users. Related standards cover data annotation (GB/T 45674) and training data (GB/T 45652).
Testing requirements in GB/T 45654-2025, Appendix B
Item Requirement Keyword library At least 10,000 entries covering 17 risks; weekly updates Generated-content test bank At least 2,000 questions covering all 31 risk types; at least 50 per main risk; monthly updates Must-refuse bank (应拒答) At least 500 questions Must-answer bank (非拒答) At least 500 questions, incl. "China's system, beliefs, image, culture … heroic martyrs" Spot checks At least 1,000 manual and 1,000 automated questions, plus at least 300 refusal questions Pass mark, content At least 90% of outputs "qualified" Pass mark, must-refuse At least 95% refused Pass mark, must-answer At most 5% refused Training data A source is barred if more than 5% of it is illegal or unhealthy Table 6. Minimum bank sizes, refresh cycles and pass marks set by the standard. Source: CSET translation.[2][2] CSET translation of GB/T 45654-2025 Primary
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App Registrations Grew Faster Than Service Filings
Cumulative CAC filed services and local registrations, end of 2025 and end of August 2026.
What to notice
- Registrations grew faster in relative terms: +68% against +49% for filings.
Data table
Line 31 Dec 2025 31 Aug 2026 Change Filed services (备案) 748 1,112 +364 Local registrations (登记) 435 731 +296 Figure 8. Registrations cover apps that call an already-filed model through an API. The table above gives the intermediate counts. Source: IT之家;[46][46] IT之家 on CAC filings at end-2025 Secondary Beijing News.[1][1] Beijing News on CAC filings Secondary
China is writing the first binding security standard for AI agents
China's standards body moved from content to agents in 2026. TC260, the national cybersecurity standards committee, created an AI security working group (WG9) in April 2026.[54][54] SESEC on TC260 Standards Week 2026 Secondary WG9 has 89 members, including Microsoft (China), AWS (Beijing) and Siemens. Concordia AI calls the shift a move "from controlling what AI says to controlling what it does".[3][3] AIGL summary of Concordia AI's 2026 report Secondary
A mandatory agent-security standard is in drafting. The plan appeared on 27 June 2026 with an 18-month cycle.[7][7] CGTN on the agent safety standard Single source A final text could therefore arrive around the end of 2027. Mandatory standards carry the prefix "GB" without "/T", and compliance is a legal duty. Chinese media call it the "world's first mandatory national standard focused on AI agent safety".
In Three Months, China's Standards Body Turned to AI Agents
TC260 events on AI security, March to October 2026.
What to notice
- The agent standard could arrive around the end of 2027, beyond this axis.
- The comment window for the seven drafts ran to 25 October 2026.
Data table
| Date | Lane | Event | Kind | Note |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026-03-31 | TC260 and WG9 | WG9 (AI Security) created at Standards Week, Zhuhai | other | 89 members; chaired by Zhou Bowen |
| 2026-04 | Mandatory standards | Two mandatory projects started | regulation | Agents; anthropomorphic services |
| 2026-05-12 | TC260 and WG9 | Second WG9 plenary: 16 proposed standards | other | Search summary only |
| 2026-05-19 | TC260 and WG9 | Ethics and safety guidelines for AI applications adopted | release | |
| 2026-06-27 | Mandatory standards | Plan issued for the mandatory agent-security standard | regulation | 18-month cycle |
| 2026-08-26 | TC260 and WG9 | Seven drafts open for comment, incl. AI security maturity assessment | release | |
| 2027-04 (planned) | Mandatory standards | Anthropomorphic-services standard expected | regulation | Expected |
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The Draft Covers the Full Life of an Agent Action, From Identity to Shutdown
Control areas in the plan for China's mandatory "General Security Requirements for AI Agent Application", June 2026.
Identity
Agent identity and authentication.
Permissions and tool calls
Limits on what the agent may access and call.
Human intervention
Human approval for high-risk operations.
Logs
Records of agent actions.
Monitoring
Dynamic monitoring of agent behaviour.
Blocking
Blocking of anomalous actions.
Shutdown
Emergency shutdown.
What to notice
- The standard will support "testing and regulatory oversight"; it will probably become the first binding test specification for agents anywhere.
Figure 10. China Mobile, CESI and CNCERT draft the standard; the CAC proposed it. The list comes from one news report, so the final scope may differ. Source: CGTN (single source).[7][7] CGTN on the agent safety standard Single source
China's closest equivalent to a rating agency keeps its results anonymous. CAICT, under the industry ministry, issues certificates and classifies risk. In July 2025 it tested 15 models and rated two as high risk.[43][43] ChinAI #351 on CAICT's 2026 round Secondary Its 2026 round adds automated agent safety tests and an "AI coding autonomy rate".
-
Most Chinese Models in CAICT's 2025 Round Rated Medium Risk
Risk classes for 15 models (2 DeepSeek, 9 Qwen, 4 GLM) in CAICT's July 2025 test round.
- 1 model Controllable
- 3 models Low risk
- 9 models Medium risk
- 2 models High risk
Each square is 1 of 15 models.
What to notice
- Results are mostly anonymous, so buyers cannot tell which models rated high risk.
Data table
Group Value Controllable 1 models Low risk 3 models Medium risk 9 models High risk 2 models Figure 11. CAICT's first AI Safety Benchmark (April 2024) tested 8 models on 7,343 questions with 17 other bodies. Source: ChinAI #351;[43][43] ChinAI #351 on CAICT's 2026 round Secondary ChinAI #261.[58][58] ChinAI #261 on CAICT's first results Secondary
-
TC260 timeline
Date Event 31 Mar–3 Apr 2026 Standards Week in Zhuhai creates WG9 (AI Security), chaired by Shanghai AI Lab director Zhou Bowen[54][54] SESEC on TC260 Standards Week 2026 Secondary Same week WG9 has 89 members incl. Microsoft (China), AWS (Beijing), Dell, Siemens and Fujifilm; reviews 8 proposals and 5 standards in progress; starts 2 mandatory projects[54][54] SESEC on TC260 Standards Week 2026 Secondary 17 Apr–19 May 2026 Consults on, then adopts, ethics and safety guidelines for AI applications[56][56] Digital Policy Alert on TC260 ethics guidelines Secondary 12–13 May 2026 Second WG9 plenary in Shanghai discusses 16 proposed national standards[55][55] Trivium China on the WG9 plenary Single source 27 Jun 2026 Plan for the mandatory agent-security standard, 18-month cycle[7][7] CGTN on the agent safety standard Single source 26 Aug–25 Oct 2026 Seven drafts for comment, incl. an assessment method for AI security capability maturity (人工智能安全能力成熟度评估方法)[57][57] Secrss on TC260's August 2026 drafts Secondary Table 7. TC260 and WG9 events on AI security in 2026. The two mandatory projects. Anthropomorphic interactive services: basic and enhanced security tiers for human-like AI companions, following CAC interim measures of April 2026; publication expected April 2027.[54][54] SESEC on TC260 Standards Week 2026 Secondary AI agent applications: general security requirements for agents (智能体). WG8 also proposed standards on data processing by agents and on users' personal information (regular audits, backdoor detection, one-click opt-out from training).[54][54] SESEC on TC260 Standards Week 2026 Secondary
CAICT rounds
Round Scope Results April 2024 (first AI Safety Benchmark) 8 models; 7,343 questions; with AIIA and 17 other bodies[58][58] ChinAI #261 on CAICT's first results Secondary First published results July 2025 15 models: 2 DeepSeek, 9 Qwen, 4 GLM[43][43] ChinAI #351 on CAICT's 2026 round Secondary 1 "controllable", 3 low, 9 medium, 2 high risk; mostly anonymous 2026 (announced March) Coding-model safety, R&D platform trust, AI smartphone safety, automated agent safety tests, "AI coding autonomy rate"[43][43] ChinAI #351 on CAICT's 2026 round Secondary Registration June–July; certificates follow Table 8. CAICT's AI safety test rounds. Results of the July 2025 round are mostly anonymous. Concordia's 2026 report also reviews "CAICT's AI Safety Benchmark 2.0".[3][3] AIGL summary of Concordia AI's 2026 report Secondary
CnAISDA. The China AI Safety and Development Association launched in February 2025 at the Paris summit. Founders include Tsinghua, Peking University, BAAI, Shanghai AI Lab, the Shanghai Qi Zhi Institute, the CAS Institute of Automation, CAICT and CCID.[59][59] Tsinghua I-AIIG on the CnAISDA dialogue Primary Carnegie calls it an international-facing coalition and government adviser, not a regulator or tester.[60][60] Carnegie on CnAISDA Secondary[61][61] AI Frontiers on China and AI safety Secondary On 18 July 2026 at WAIC it hosted a closed dialogue on frontier evaluation with 70+ attendees, including delegations from the UK, US, Netherlands, Singapore, Korea and India. Andrew Yao presented work on "automated frontier AI evaluation"; Shanghai AI Lab presented a Safety Capability Maturity Model; the dialogue discussed "mutual recognition of standards".[59][59] Tsinghua I-AIIG on the CnAISDA dialogue Primary CnAISDA has published no evaluation results we could find.
Shanghai AI Lab framework. Published with Concordia AI in July 2025.[62][62] Shanghai AI Lab frontier risk report, arXiv 2507.16534 Primary[63][63] Concordia AI on the Shanghai AI Lab framework Secondary Seven domains: cyber offence, bio and chemical risk, persuasion, uncontrolled AI research, strategic deception, self-replication, collusion. No model crossed a red line; most sat in the "yellow" zone for persuasion, and some reasoning models for self-replication and deception. A v1.5 (February 2026) reportedly maps to TC260's governance framework 2.0 and the EU Code; search summary only.[64][64] newx listing of the v1.5 framework Single source
Research volume. Concordia counted 900+ arXiv safety papers from Chinese institutions; monthly output grew 60%; agent safety rose from 8% to about 27% of quarterly output; CBRN evaluations are starting. The AI Safety Governance Framework 2.0 adds "derivative risks" and circuit breakers. Mandatory ethics reviews apply before research in 10 pilot provinces.[3][3] AIGL summary of Concordia AI's 2026 report Secondary
China and the West share benchmarks but test different things for different audiences
The two ecosystems share tools but split on governance. Both run the same agentic benchmarks on the same harnesses.[4][4] DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash model card Primary[5][5] GLM-5.3 model card Primary They differ on what a test checks, who runs it and where the results go. The story below walks through the comparison row by row. "The West" here means the EU, the UK and the US.
A Model Can Pass One Regime and Fail the Other
How evaluation works in China and in the EU, UK and US, November 2026.
What the test checks
ChinaContent compliance with state-defined categories, against numeric pass marks (31 risk types)
EU, UK and USDangerous capabilities, misuse and alignment; no fixed pass marks
Step 1 of 8: One row shown: what the test checks.
Real links exist between the two worlds. OpenCompass is an open-source toolkit that anyone can run.[17][17] OpenCompass repository data Primary Western multinationals sit in TC260's WG9.[54][54] SESEC on TC260 Standards Week 2026 Secondary Western bodies also test Chinese models without the developer's help: the US centre evaluated DeepSeek V4 Pro in May 2026.[67][67] Cloud Security Alliance, CAISI testing agreements Secondary
The splits run deeper than the links. The international network's third joint agent test included Singapore, Japan, Korea and Kenya, but not China.[66][66] Third joint agentic testing exercise, arXiv 2601.15679 Primary Neither side shares raw test results across the divide. We found no formal EU–China cooperation on evaluation.
-
Connections.
- Chinese flagship cards benchmark against Opus, Fable and GPT models on Claude Code and Codex harnesses.[5][5] GLM-5.3 model card Primary[4][4] DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash model card Primary
- OpenCompass is an open-source toolkit anyone can run.[17][17] OpenCompass repository data Primary
- Microsoft (China), AWS (Beijing), Dell (China) and Siemens (China) sit in TC260's WG9.[54][54] SESEC on TC260 Standards Week 2026 Secondary
- Shanghai AI Lab's framework reportedly maps to the EU Code of Practice (unverified).[64][64] newx listing of the v1.5 framework Single source
- China supports an independent international scientific panel on AI, proposes a World AI Cooperation Organization, and takes part in ISO/IEC and ITU-T standards work.[3][3] AIGL summary of Concordia AI's 2026 report Secondary
- Western bodies test Chinese models without the developer: the US centre on DeepSeek V4 Pro (May 2026); Neo Research on Kimi, GLM and DeepSeek.[67][67] Cloud Security Alliance, CAISI testing agreements Secondary[6][6] The Next Web on Neo Research Secondary
Splits.
- China was absent from the network's third joint agent test.[66][66] Third joint agentic testing exercise, arXiv 2601.15679 Primary
- The must-answer bank encodes state political norms; a model can pass the Chinese test and fail a Western neutrality test, and the reverse.[2][2] CSET translation of GB/T 45654-2025 Primary
- Chinese safety evidence stays private; Western labs publish system cards. Neither side shares raw results.
- No formal EU–China cooperation on evaluation found.
The rest of Asia builds benchmarks, guides and markets for private testers
Japan focuses on Japanese-language benchmarks and method guides. Weights & Biases Japan runs the Nejumi Leaderboard, and LLM-jp runs the Open Japanese LLM Leaderboard with 16 tasks.[68][68] aipicks glossary, Nejumi Leaderboard Secondary[69][69] Gigazine on the Open Japanese LLM Leaderboard Secondary Japan's AI Safety Institute published a red-teaming guide, last revised in March 2025.[70][70] J-AISI, red-teaming guide v1.10 summary Primary Chinese open-weight models do well on Japanese boards: Qwen3.5 scored 0.711 on Nejumi 4 below 10 billion parameters.[71][71] lilting.ch on Japanese LLM options Secondary
Korea has a hard AI law but no third-party test mandate. The AI Basic Act took effect on 22 January 2026.[8][8] Cooley on Korea's AI Basic Act Secondary Operators must self-assess high-impact systems, and models above 10^26 FLOPs need a risk-management plan. Fines reach KRW 30 million after a one-year grace period. Korea's most visible state evaluation is a contest that ranks five national model consortia.[72][72] Mobile World Live on Korea's sovereign AI project Secondary
Singapore builds tools and a market for private testers. Its accreditation programme lists five testing firms and charges no fees.[9][9] AI Verify Foundation, AI Tester Accreditation Primary In October 2026 it extended testing guidance to autonomous agents and began accrediting assessors (single source).[10][10] MLex on Singapore agent testing Single source Singapore's AI Safety Institute led the common-risks track of the network's third joint agent test.[66][66] Third joint agentic testing exercise, arXiv 2601.15679 Primary
India's benchmarks show that safety does not transfer across languages. IndicSafe tested 6,000 cultural safety prompts in 12 Indic languages on 10 models.[11][11] IndicSafe, arXiv 2603.17915 Primary The same models agreed with themselves across languages in only 12.8% of cases. A January 2026 white paper proposes an Indian AI Safety Institute as the central tester.[73][73] Lokmat Times on India's techno-legal framework Secondary
12.8%
Share of cases in which the same models gave consistent safety verdicts across 12 Indic languages (IndicSafe, March 2026).
Source: IndicSafe, arXiv 2603.17915.[11][11] IndicSafe, arXiv 2603.17915 Primary
The same safety test can give opposite answers on different models. Inspect India Evals ran six benchmarks on UK AISI's Inspect in July 2026.[74][74] Inspect India Evals, arXiv 2607.25375 Primary Its safety test for India's digital public infrastructure passed every case on one model and only a fifth on another. Chinese bases also spread into regional models: AI Singapore built SEA-LION v4.5 on Qwen.[75][75] SEA-HELM leaderboard Primary
-
Latin America's Flagship Model Trails Open Rivals on a Spanish Test
Spanish MMLU-ProX scores run by one independent author after LatamGPT's open-weight release (1 June 2026).
What to notice
- LatamGPT's open weights shipped "without a single benchmark number", according to the same blog.
- Sources disagree on LatamGPT's size: 70B on a Llama 3.1 base, or 50B.
Data table
Item Value Qwen3.6 27B 77.82 Llama 3.1 70B 61.48 LatamGPT (CENIA, Chile) 45.81 Figure 13. One author ran this test without peer review; treat it with care. CENIA built two cultural benchmarks of its own: CHOCLO (104,847 questions) and Trueque (500 questions). Source: vgaraujov blog (single author);[76][76] vgaraujov blog on LatamGPT benchmarks Single source Emol;[77][77] Emol on LatamGPT Secondary CO/AI.[78][78] CO/AI on LatamGPT Secondary
-
Japan: evaluation assets
Asset Owner What it does Status JGLUE Academic, LREC 2022 Japanese language understanding[79][79] JGLUE, ACL Anthology Primary Foundational ELYZA-tasks-100 ELYZA Japanese instruction following[80][80] ELYZA-tasks-100 on Hugging Face Primary Unchanged since Dec 2023 Nejumi Leaderboard Weights & Biases Japan Comprehension, answer quality and safety[68][68] aipicks glossary, Nejumi Leaderboard Secondary Nejumi 4 in use in 2026[71][71] lilting.ch on Japanese LLM options Secondary Open Japanese LLM Leaderboard LLM-jp and Hugging Face 16 tasks through llm-jp-eval[69][69] Gigazine on the Open Japanese LLM Leaderboard Secondary Updated 30 Oct 2026[81][81] Open Japanese LLM Leaderboard Space data Primary Swallow leaderboard Institute of Science Tokyo Adds JamC-QA, a Japan-specific knowledge set[82][82] Swallow leaderboard, about page Primary Moved to swallow-evaluation-instruct v202510 Guide to Red Teaming Methodology J-AISI Method for red-teaming AI systems[83][83] J-AISI, Guide to Red Teaming Methodology Primary v1.10 (March 2025) added a RAG example;[70][70] J-AISI, red-teaming guide v1.10 summary Primary no 2026 revision found Table 9. Japan's main benchmarks, leaderboards and method guides, with their 2026 status. Japan took part in the international network's joint agent testing.[66][66] Third joint agentic testing exercise, arXiv 2601.15679 Primary
Korea: AI Basic Act duties
Duty Who it applies to What it requires High-impact AI Operators of systems in high-impact uses Self-assess before deployment, or ask the science ministry (MSIT); explanation, user protection, human oversight, documentation; best efforts on a fundamental-rights impact check "High-performance AI" Models trained with at least 10^26 FLOPs Lifecycle risk-management plan, results reported to MSIT Domestic agent Foreign firms above set thresholds Name a representative in Korea Sanctions All covered firms Fines up to KRW 30 million after a one-year grace period Table 10. Duties under the AI Basic Act, in force since 22 January 2026. Source: Cooley.[8][8] Cooley on Korea's AI Basic Act Secondary One blog claims high-impact duties went live only on 21 July 2026 after a 14 July amendment; this conflicts with Cooley and is unverified.[84][84] Pebblous blog on Korea's high-impact AI Single source Korea AISI (founded November 2024) has a mission to evaluate AI risks; we found no published results.[85][85] Korea AISI, mission page Primary In the Sovereign AI Foundation Model project, an NIA benchmark covers maths, knowledge, long-text comprehension, reliability and safety; SKT's A.X K1 scored 9.2 of 10 in Phase 1 and tied for first.[72][72] Mobile World Live on Korea's sovereign AI project Secondary KMMLU holds 35,030 expert questions in 45 subjects; the best public model scored 50.5% at launch.[86][86] KMMLU, arXiv 2402.11548 Primary The Open Ko-LLM Leaderboard has not changed since December 2024.[87][87] Open Ko-LLM Leaderboard Space data Primary
-
Singapore: testing programmes
Programme Launched What it does Status in Nov 2026 AI Verify Tester Accreditation 2026 Accredits testing firms against the IMDA Starter Kit; no fees; 12-month term[9][9] AI Verify Foundation, AI Tester Accreditation Primary Five firms: AIDX, Knovel, PwC, Resaro, Vulcan Project Moonshot May 2024 Open toolkit for red-teaming, benchmarking and baseline tests, with MLCommons[88][88] Allen & Gledhill on Project Moonshot Secondary In use Agentic AI governance framework Jan 2026, Davos Five risk categories, incl. wrong and unauthorised actions[89][89] GAICC on Singapore's agentic AI framework Single source Promotional source only Agent testing guidance and assessor accreditation Oct 2026 Extends guidance to autonomous agents; accredits assessors; forms a cyber task force[10][10] MLex on Singapore agent testing Single source Sector cyber guidance due H1 2027; single source SEA-HELM 2025 Holistic evaluation in seven South-East Asian languages, five pillars[90][90] SEA-HELM, arXiv 2502.14301 Primary Updated 18 Sept 2026; 75 open-weight and 16 closed models[75][75] SEA-HELM leaderboard Primary Table 11. Singapore's testing programmes and their status in November 2026. The accreditation programme guarantees no safety outcome and accredits firms, not models.[9][9] AI Verify Foundation, AI Tester Accreditation Primary UK AISI led the cybersecurity track of the joint test; the paper reports methods, not model results.[66][66] Third joint agentic testing exercise, arXiv 2601.15679 Primary Neo Research, based in Singapore, gave the clearest 2026 comparison of Chinese and US model safety behaviour.[6][6] The Next Web on Neo Research Secondary SEA-HELM's featured models include Qwen 3.5 and 3.6, Gemma 4 and SEA-LION.[75][75] SEA-HELM leaderboard Primary
India: evaluation assets
Asset Date What it tests Key result MILU Nov 2024 8 domains, 41 subjects, 11 Indic languages, from regional and state exams[91][91] MILU, arXiv 2411.02538 Primary Baseline knowledge set IndicSafe March 2026 6,000 cultural safety prompts in 12 Indic languages, 10 models[11][11] IndicSafe, arXiv 2603.17915 Primary 12.8% cross-language agreement Inspect India Evals July 2026 Six benchmarks on Inspect: MMLU in 16 languages, BharatBBQ bias, a DPI safety test, multi-turn jailbreaks[74][74] Inspect India Evals, arXiv 2607.25375 Primary Sarvam-M and Gemma 2 tied at 80% on the India Fairness Index; DPI safety 20% to 100% SurakshaEval Aug 2026 Human-written Indic safety prompts in 10 languages[92][92] SurakshaEval on alphaXiv Single source Search summary only Indic LLM Arena Not stated Crowd-sourced battles on language, context and safety; AI4Bharat at IIT Madras with Google Cloud[93][93] AI4Bharat, Indic LLM Arena Primary Live BharatBench Not stated Ola Krutrim; 8 Indic languages across text, vision and speech[94][94] Ola Krutrim, BharatBench report Vendor Vendor benchmark Table 12. India's main benchmarks and arenas, with key results. DPI means Digital Public Infrastructure, India's state platforms for identity and payments. The Atlantic Council describes an existing IndiaAI Safety Institute with a hub-and-spokes model; its March 2024 date may confuse the IndiaAI Mission with the institute.[95][95] Atlantic Council on India's AI summit Secondary The white paper's AISI would also run an AI incident database.[73][73] Lokmat Times on India's techno-legal framework Secondary
Gulf. Not researched in depth. The Open Arabic LLM Leaderboard last changed on 9 October 2025.[12][12] Open Arabic LLM Leaderboard Space data Primary We did not cover SDAIA, ALLaM, TII, G42 or MBZUAI.
Latin America. LatamGPT launched on 10 February 2026 in Santiago with President Boric; the Chilean centre CENIA coordinates it.[13][13] Buenos Aires Times on LatamGPT Secondary Emol reports 70 billion parameters on a Llama 3.1 base; another outlet reports 50 billion.[77][77] Emol on LatamGPT Secondary[78][78] CO/AI on LatamGPT Secondary CHOCLO holds 104,847 questions on Latin American cultural knowledge; Trueque holds 500 curated questions.[76][76] vgaraujov blog on LatamGPT benchmarks Single source We did not research Brazil's draft AI law.
For an outside evaluator, Asia shows an evidence gap and a template for pass marks
Chinese open-weight models reach other markets without public safety evidence. Firms worldwide deploy Qwen, DeepSeek, Kimi and GLM models as agents. Their public cards contain no safety evaluations, and the labs did not sign the EU Code.[65][65] Cloud Security Alliance, EU AI Act GPAI enforcement Secondary Their safety evidence sits in Chinese regulatory files that foreign buyers cannot see. An outside evaluator must therefore generate that evidence itself.
Chinese bases spread into other models. SEA-LION v4.5 runs on a Qwen base, and Qwen leads several regional boards.[75][75] SEA-HELM leaderboard Primary[71][71] lilting.ch on Japanese LLM options Secondary Fine-tunes elsewhere follow the same path. A rating of a fine-tuned model or agent should record its base model.
Agent controls are converging across regimes. China's draft standard and Singapore's agent guidance cover the same ground: identity, permissions, human approval, logs and shutdown.[7][7] CGTN on the agent safety standard Single source[10][10] MLex on Singapore agent testing Single source The EU AI Act asks for record-keeping (Article 12) and human oversight (Article 14) in high-risk systems. A test suite built on these controls could earn recognition in several jurisdictions. CnAISDA has already raised "mutual recognition of standards".[59][59] Tsinghua I-AIIG on the CnAISDA dialogue Primary
Three Regimes Are Converging on the Same Agent Controls
Agent controls named in China's draft standard, Singapore's agent guidance and the EU AI Act's high-risk duties.
| Control | China agent standard Draft plan, Jun 2026 | Singapore agent guidance Jan and Oct 2026 | EU AI Act, high-risk From Dec 2027 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Identity and authentication | Named | Not confirmed | Not confirmed |
| Permissions and tool calls | Named | Related Unauthorised actions as a risk | Not confirmed |
| Singapore agent guidance: Unauthorised actions as a risk | |||
| Human approval for high-risk steps | Named | Not confirmed | Named Art. 14 human oversight |
| EU AI Act, high-risk: Art. 14 human oversight | |||
| Logs | Named | Not confirmed | Named Art. 12 record-keeping |
| EU AI Act, high-risk: Art. 12 record-keeping | |||
| Monitoring and anomaly blocking | Named | Not confirmed | Not confirmed |
| Emergency shutdown | Named | Not confirmed | Not confirmed |
What to notice
- China's draft names every control; the other two regimes are confirmed for only some.
- "Not confirmed" means our sources do not mention it, not that the regime excludes it.
China's standard shows how to write numeric pass marks. GB/T 45654 fixes bank sizes, refresh cycles and three pass rates.[2][2] CSET translation of GB/T 45654-2025 Primary It pairs a must-refuse bank with a must-answer bank to punish over-refusal. Any rating scheme can copy that structure with its own content. The Chinese content itself does not transfer, because it encodes state political norms.
Fixed harnesses and multilingual tests are the minimum. Harness choice moved one DeepSeek score by almost 9 points.[4][4] DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash model card Primary Safety verdicts agreed across Indic languages in only 12.8% of cases.[11][11] IndicSafe, arXiv 2603.17915 Primary A credible evaluator fixes one harness for all models and tests in the languages the system serves.
Asia offers one open door and one closed door. Singapore's tester accreditation costs nothing and lasts 12 months.[9][9] AI Verify Foundation, AI Tester Accreditation Primary China's compliance loop has no role for a foreign evaluator. There, the CAC filing and CAICT certificates hold all the trust.
-
- No current top ten for SuperCLUE, OpenCompass or FlagEval; their sites render in JavaScript.
- No 2026 update to SuperCLUE-Safety or SuperCLUE-Agent beyond their 2023 launches.
- The "no safety content" finding covers Hugging Face cards only, not separate technical reports such as a DeepSeek V4 paper or a Qwen3.8 blog.
- We did not check cards for Tencent Hunyuan (Hy3) or ByteDance Seed (Doubao); closed Doubao models have no Hugging Face card.
- No primary audit proves contamination in a named 2026 Chinese model.
- Two CAC filing counts (February and June 2026) come from search summaries only.[49][49] Guangming on CAC filings Single source[50][50] Tonghuashun on CAC filings Single source
- The status of GB 45438-2025, the mandatory labelling standard for AI-generated content, is unconfirmed from a primary source.
- No public list of accredited third-party testing bodies for the CAC filing.
- The agent-security standard's scope rests on one news report.[7][7] CGTN on the agent safety standard Single source
- Shanghai AI Lab's v1.5 mapping to the EU Code rests on a search summary.[64][64] newx listing of the v1.5 framework Single source
- No details of the May 2026 CAC action on agents beyond Concordia's mention.[3][3] AIGL summary of Concordia AI's 2026 report Secondary
- The WG9 May plenary and the note on de facto force rest on search summaries.[55][55] Trivium China on the WG9 plenary Single source[51][51] SESEC report on TC260 AI standardisation Secondary
- Singapore's October 2026 agent extension rests on one news report; its January 2026 framework on a promotional source.[10][10] MLex on Singapore agent testing Single source[89][89] GAICC on Singapore's agentic AI framework Single source
- Korea's high-impact start date conflicts between sources; no published Korea AISI results.[8][8] Cooley on Korea's AI Basic Act Secondary[84][84] Pebblous blog on Korea's high-impact AI Single source
- India's AISI status is unclear between a proposal and an existing body.[73][73] Lokmat Times on India's techno-legal framework Secondary[95][95] Atlantic Council on India's AI summit Secondary
- Not researched: Chinese security vendors' red-teaming products, the Gulf in depth, Brazil.
- No evidence of Chinese participation in the network's joint testing.
Sources
Every number keeps its date and source. Badges mark source quality: primary, secondary, vendor (a claim about the publisher's own product), single source, or estimate.
- [1] Beijing News on CAC filings. It reports 1,112 filed services and 731 registrations by 31 August 2026. Secondary m.bjnews.com.cn
- [2] CSET translation of GB/T 45654-2025. It gives the English text of the generative AI safety standard and its test numbers. Primary cset.georgetown.edu
- [3] AIGL summary of Concordia AI's 2026 report. It summarises the state of AI safety in China in 2026. Secondary aigl.blog
- [4] DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash model card. It gives base and chat benchmark tables and a harness-sensitivity table. Primary huggingface.co
- [5] GLM-5.3 model card. It reports Z.ai's benchmarks against Western and Chinese rivals. Primary huggingface.co
- [6] The Next Web on Neo Research. It reports evaluation-awareness and jailbreak results for US and Chinese models. Secondary thenextweb.com
- [7] CGTN on the agent safety standard. It reports the plan for a mandatory national standard on AI agent security (single source). Single source news.cgtn.com
- [8] Cooley on Korea's AI Basic Act. It summarises the Act's duties, thresholds and fines. Secondary cooley.com
- [9] AI Verify Foundation, AI Tester Accreditation. It lists the accredited firms and the programme terms. Primary aiverifyfoundation.sg
- [10] MLex on Singapore agent testing. It reports the extension of testing guidance to autonomous agents (single source). Single source mlex.com
- [11] IndicSafe, arXiv 2603.17915. It tests culturally grounded safety prompts in 12 Indic languages. Primary arxiv.org
- [12]
- [13] Buenos Aires Times on LatamGPT. It reports the LatamGPT launch in Santiago. Secondary batimes.com.ar
- [14] C-Eval, arXiv 2305.08322. It introduces the Chinese multi-level knowledge benchmark. Primary arxiv.org
- [15]
- [16] DataLearner, SuperCLUE page. It describes the SuperCLUE method and lists later scores. Secondary datalearner.com
- [17] OpenCompass repository data. It gives the stars, last update and self-description of OpenCompass. Primary github.com
- [18] FlagEvalMM repository data. It shows the activity of FlagEval's multimodal repository. Primary github.com
- [19]
- [20] ERNIE-5.5-Flash-Base model card. It reports Baidu's base-model scores, including CMMLU. Primary huggingface.co
- [21] AGIEval, arXiv 2304.06364. It introduces the human-exam benchmark with gaokao questions. Primary arxiv.org
- [22] SafetyBench, arXiv 2309.07045. It introduces the bilingual multiple-choice safety benchmark. Primary arxiv.org
- [23]
- [24] JADE, arXiv 2311.00286. It describes the linguistic-fuzzing safety platform and its results. Primary arxiv.org
- [25] ForesightSafety Bench, arXiv 2602.14135. It describes a frontier-risk safety evaluation framework. Primary arxiv.org
- [26]
- [27] OpenCompass column on CSDN. It summarises the arena upgrade and the 2026 monthly boards. Secondary blog.csdn.net
- [28]
- [29] FlagEval-Robo (formerly FlagEval-Embodied Verse), Hugging Face Space. It hosts BAAI's embodied-AI leaderboard, renamed in January 2026. Primary huggingface.co
- [30]
- [31]
- [32] SuperCLUE repository data. It shows the stars and last update of the SuperCLUE repository. Primary github.com
- [33] MIT Technology Review on xbench. It describes HongShan's benchmark and its tracks. Secondary technologyreview.com
- [34] Qwen3.8-Flash-Next-FP8 model card. It reports Alibaba's benchmarks and its best-of-harness rule. Primary huggingface.co
- [35] DeepSeek-V4-Pro-0813 model card. It reports DeepSeek's own benchmarks and harness. Primary huggingface.co
- [36]
- [37]
- [38] MiniMax-M3.1-Flash model card. It reports MiniMax's benchmarks, including an in-house reproduction. Primary huggingface.co
- [39] MindStudio blog on the benchmark gap. It claims weaker results on contamination-resistant tests (low quality). Secondary mindstudio.ai
- [40] AI CERTs on MiniMax M2.5. It reports a debate on contamination and harnesses (low quality). Secondary aicerts.ai
- [41] Startup Fortune on safety-test gaming. It disputes the headline claims about Chinese models. Secondary startupfortune.com
- [42] SCMP on Neo Research. It reports the same study of Chinese models and safety tests. Secondary scmp.com
- [43] ChinAI #351 on CAICT's 2026 round. It describes CAICT's 2026 test categories and earlier results. Secondary chinai.substack.com
- [44] OfficeChai on Dario Amodei. It reports his view that Chinese models target benchmarks. Secondary officechai.com
- [45] SCMP on a physical-AI ranking. It asks whether a start-up manipulated a global ranking (paywalled). Secondary scmp.com
- [46] IT之家 on CAC filings at end-2025. It reports 748 filed services and 435 registrations. Secondary ithome.com
- [47] IT之家 on CAC filings in April 2026. It reports 868 filed services and 17 deep-synthesis batches. Secondary ithome.com
- [48]
- [49] Guangming on CAC filings. A search summary gave counts for February and June 2026 (page not opened). Single source m.gmw.cn
- [50] Tonghuashun on CAC filings. A search summary gave an intermediate filing count (page not opened). Single source news.10jqka.com.cn
- [51] SESEC report on TC260 AI standardisation. It explains how recommended standards gain de facto force (via search summary). Secondary sesec.eu
- [52]
- [53] CSDN guide to CAC filing. It lists the filing package and advertises filing agents. Vendor aicoding.csdn.net
- [54] SESEC on TC260 Standards Week 2026. It reports WG9's creation, members and mandatory projects. Secondary sesec.eu
- [55] Trivium China on the WG9 plenary. It reports the May 2026 plenary (via search summary). Single source triviumchina.com
- [56] Digital Policy Alert on TC260 ethics guidelines. It reports the adoption of ethics and safety guidelines for AI applications. Secondary digitalpolicyalert.org
- [57] Secrss on TC260's August 2026 drafts. It lists seven draft standards open for comment. Secondary secrss.com
- [58] ChinAI #261 on CAICT's first results. It reports the first round of CAICT's AI Safety Benchmark. Secondary chinai.substack.com
- [59] Tsinghua I-AIIG on the CnAISDA dialogue. It reports CnAISDA's members and its WAIC 2026 dialogue. Primary aiig.tsinghua.edu.cn
- [60] Carnegie on CnAISDA. It explains how Chinese experts built their own safety institute. Secondary carnegieendowment.org
- [61] AI Frontiers on China and AI safety. It assesses how seriously China treats AI safety. Secondary ai-frontiers.org
- [62] Shanghai AI Lab frontier risk report, arXiv 2507.16534. It reports frontier-risk results across seven domains. Primary arxiv.org
- [63] Concordia AI on the Shanghai AI Lab framework. It describes the joint risk management framework. Secondary aisafetychina.substack.com
- [64] newx listing of the v1.5 framework. It lists the February 2026 framework report (via search summary; not verified). Single source newx.sg
- [65] Cloud Security Alliance, EU AI Act GPAI enforcement. It covers fines and the labs that did not sign the Code. Secondary labs.cloudsecurityalliance.org
- [66] Third joint agentic testing exercise, arXiv 2601.15679. It describes the network's joint agent testing method. Primary arxiv.org
- [67] Cloud Security Alliance, CAISI testing agreements. It summarises CAISI's agreements and findings, including DeepSeek V4 Pro. Secondary labs.cloudsecurityalliance.org
- [68] aipicks glossary, Nejumi Leaderboard. It describes the Nejumi Leaderboard and its scoring. Secondary aipicks.jp
- [69] Gigazine on the Open Japanese LLM Leaderboard. It reports the leaderboard launch and its tasks. Secondary wbgsv0a.gigazine.net
- [70]
- [71] lilting.ch on Japanese LLM options. It compares Japanese model results on Nejumi 4. Secondary lilting.ch
- [72] Mobile World Live on Korea's sovereign AI project. It reports SKT's NIA benchmark result. Secondary mobileworldlive.com
- [73] Lokmat Times on India's techno-legal framework. It reports the white paper's AISI proposal. Secondary lokmattimes.com
- [74] Inspect India Evals, arXiv 2607.25375. It describes six Indian benchmarks built on Inspect. Primary arxiv.org
- [75] SEA-HELM leaderboard. It lists current results for South-East Asian languages. Primary leaderboard.sea-lion.ai
- [76] vgaraujov blog on LatamGPT benchmarks. It describes CENIA's benchmarks and runs a Spanish test (single author). Single source vgaraujov.github.io
- [77]
- [78]
- [79] JGLUE, ACL Anthology. It introduces the Japanese language understanding benchmark. Primary aclanthology.org
- [80] ELYZA-tasks-100 on Hugging Face. It hosts the Japanese instruction-following set. Primary huggingface.co
- [81]
- [82] Swallow leaderboard, about page. It describes the Swallow evaluation suite and JamC-QA. Primary swallow-llm.github.io
- [83]
- [84] Pebblous blog on Korea's high-impact AI. It claims a later start date for high-impact duties (unverified). Single source blog.pebblous.ai
- [85]
- [86]
- [87]
- [88] Allen & Gledhill on Project Moonshot. It describes Singapore's generative AI testing toolkit. Secondary allenandgledhill.com
- [89] GAICC on Singapore's agentic AI framework. It summarises the January 2026 framework (promotional source). Single source gaicc.org
- [90] SEA-HELM, arXiv 2502.14301. It describes the South-East Asian language evaluation suite. Primary arxiv.org
- [91]
- [92] SurakshaEval on alphaXiv. It describes human-written Indic safety prompts (via search summary). Single source alphaxiv.org
- [93] AI4Bharat, Indic LLM Arena. It describes the crowd-sourced Indic arena. Primary ai4bharat.iitm.ac.in
- [94] Ola Krutrim, BharatBench report. It describes the Indic multimodal benchmark. Vendor ai-labs.olakrutrim.com
- [95] Atlantic Council on India's AI summit. It describes the IndiaAI Safety Institute. Secondary atlanticcouncil.org
All figure and table data in this chapter. Each item links to its place in the report.
Figure 1. One Country Tests Before Launch; the Rest of Asia Builds Tools
| Country or region | Binding test duty? | Value | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| China | Yes, de facto through filing | 1,112 filed | CAC filing; GB/T 45654-2025; mandatory agent standard in drafting. |
| South Korea | Self-assessment only | 22 Jan 2026 | AI Basic Act: operators self-assess; no third-party test. |
| Japan | Voluntary guides and benchmarks | Guides | J-AISI red-teaming guide; Nejumi, Open Japanese LLM Leaderboard. |
| Gulf | Not researched | Open Arabic LLM Leaderboard idle since Oct 2025. | |
| India | Proposals only | 12.8% | AISI proposed Jan 2026; IndicSafe, MILU, Inspect India Evals. |
| Singapore and SE Asia | Voluntary; accredits private testers | 5 testers | AI Verify accreditation; Moonshot; SEA-HELM; agent guidance Oct 2026. |
| Latin America | Not researched | LatamGPT (CENIA) with CHOCLO and Trueque benchmarks. |
Figure 2. On China's Own Leaderboard, Chinese Models Trail by Less Than a Point
| Item | Value | Category |
|---|---|---|
| GPT-5.4 (3rd place, March) | 72.48 | March 2026 round |
| Doubao-Seed-2.0-pro (Best Chinese model, March) | 71.53 | March 2026 round |
| Qwen3.8-Max-0902 (Later round) | 72.62 | Later 2026 round |
| DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash (Later round) | 71.81 | Later 2026 round |
Figure 3. Chinese Cards Report Western Agent Benchmarks, Their Own Tests and No Safety Results
| Lab and model (card date) | Western agentic benchmarks | Chinese benchmarks | Own in-house benchmark | Harness disclosed or varied | Safety evaluation section |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash | Yes (Terminal-Bench, DeepSWE, HLE) | Partly (Base table only) | No | Yes (Eight harness modes) | No |
| DeepSeek-V4-Pro-0813 | Partly | No | Yes (DSBench-FullStack, DSBench-Hard) | Partly (Own "DeepSeek Harness") | No |
| Kimi-K3 / K3.1-Pro | Yes (Third-party agent boards) | No | Yes (Kimi Code Bench) | Partly (Often Claude Code) | No |
| GLM-5.3 (Z.ai) | Yes (Terminal Bench, FrontierSWE, HLE) | No | Yes (Z.ai Code Bench, +50%) | Partly | No |
| Qwen3.8-Flash-Next | Yes (SWE-bench Pro, OSWorld 2.0) | No | No | Partly (Best of two harnesses) | No |
| ERNIE-5.5-Flash-Base | No | Yes (CMMLU 90.0) | No | Not applicable | No |
| MiniMax-M3.1-Flash | Yes (OSWorld 2.0) | No | Partly (In-house rival reproduction) | Partly | No |
Figure 4. Changing the Harness Alone Moves DeepSeek's Score by Almost 9 Points
| Row | Lower score | Higher score | Gap |
|---|---|---|---|
| DeepSWE v1.1 (same model, two harnesses) | 65.5 | 74.2 | +8.7 pts |
| Terminal-Bench 4.0 (DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash vs Opus-5.0) | 31.2 | 51.8 | +20.6 pts |
Figure 5. US and Chinese Models Both Notice When They Are Being Tested
| Category | Value |
|---|---|
| Claude 4.5 Opus (US) | 80% |
| Kimi K2.6 (China) | 60% |
| GLM 5.1 (China) | 39% |
| DeepSeek V4 Pro (China) | 17% |
Figure 6. China Approves a Generative AI Service Almost Every Day
| Month | Filed services (cumulative) |
|---|---|
| 2025-12 | 748 |
| 2026-02 | 796 |
| 2026-04 | 868 |
| 2026-06 | 988 |
| 2026-08 | 1,112 |
Figure 7. China's Test Has Fixed Sizes and Fixed Pass Marks
| Item | Value | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Keyword library | ≥10,000 | 17 risks; weekly updates |
| Spot checks | ≥2,300 | 1,000 manual + 1,000 automated + 300 refusal |
| Generated-content test bank | ≥2,000 | all 31 risk types; monthly updates |
| Must-refuse bank | ≥500 | ≥95% must be refused |
| Must-answer bank | ≥500 | ≤5% may be refused |
Figure 8. App Registrations Grew Faster Than Service Filings
| Line | 31 Dec 2025 | 31 Aug 2026 | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Filed services (备案) | 748 | 1,112 | +364 |
| Local registrations (登记) | 435 | 731 | +296 |
Figure 9. In Three Months, China's Standards Body Turned to AI Agents
| Date | Lane | Event | Kind | Note |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026-03-31 | TC260 and WG9 | WG9 (AI Security) created at Standards Week, Zhuhai | other | 89 members; chaired by Zhou Bowen |
| 2026-04 | Mandatory standards | Two mandatory projects started | regulation | Agents; anthropomorphic services |
| 2026-05-12 | TC260 and WG9 | Second WG9 plenary: 16 proposed standards | other | Search summary only |
| 2026-05-19 | TC260 and WG9 | Ethics and safety guidelines for AI applications adopted | release | |
| 2026-06-27 | Mandatory standards | Plan issued for the mandatory agent-security standard | regulation | 18-month cycle |
| 2026-08-26 | TC260 and WG9 | Seven drafts open for comment, incl. AI security maturity assessment | release | |
| 2027-04 (planned) | Mandatory standards | Anthropomorphic-services standard expected | regulation | Expected |
Figure 10. The Draft Covers the Full Life of an Agent Action, From Identity to Shutdown
| Layer | Status | Description | Examples |
|---|---|---|---|
| Identity | Agent identity and authentication. | ||
| Permissions and tool calls | Limits on what the agent may access and call. | ||
| Human intervention | Human approval for high-risk operations. | ||
| Logs | Records of agent actions. | ||
| Monitoring | Dynamic monitoring of agent behaviour. | ||
| Blocking | Blocking of anomalous actions. | ||
| Shutdown | Emergency shutdown. |
Figure 11. Most Chinese Models in CAICT's 2025 Round Rated Medium Risk
| Group | Value |
|---|---|
| Controllable | 1 models |
| Low risk | 3 models |
| Medium risk | 9 models |
| High risk | 2 models |
Figure 12. A Model Can Pass One Regime and Fail the Other
| Topic | China | EU, UK and US |
|---|---|---|
| What the test checks | Content compliance with state-defined categories, against numeric pass marks (31 risk types) | Dangerous capabilities, misuse and alignment; no fixed pass marks |
| Who runs the test | The provider, with state testers (CAICT, CESI, CNCERT); CAC reviews | Labs, government institutes and independent evaluators |
| Legal force | De facto licence for every public generative AI service (1,112 filed by 31 Aug 2026) | EU duty for the largest GPAI models, enforced from 2 Aug 2026; voluntary tests in the UK and US |
| Where the evidence goes | The regulator; public cards stay silent on safety (0 of 9) | Public system cards and model reports, often redacted |
| Agent rules | Mandatory agent-security standard in drafting (plan 27 Jun 2026) | Voluntary guidance; no binding agent test |
| Benchmarks for frontier claims | The same Western agentic benchmarks, often on Claude Code or Codex harnesses | Same |
| International testing | Dialogue through CnAISDA and WAIC; absent from joint testing | Joint testing in the international network |
| EU GPAI Code of Practice | Major Chinese labs did not sign | Most US frontier labs signed; Meta did not |
Figure 13. Latin America's Flagship Model Trails Open Rivals on a Spanish Test
| Item | Value |
|---|---|
| Qwen3.6 27B | 77.82 |
| Llama 3.1 70B | 61.48 |
| LatamGPT (CENIA, Chile) | 45.81 |
Figure 14. Three Regimes Are Converging on the Same Agent Controls
| Control | China agent standard | Singapore agent guidance | EU AI Act, high-risk |
|---|---|---|---|
| Identity and authentication | Named | Not confirmed | Not confirmed |
| Permissions and tool calls | Named | Related (Unauthorised actions as a risk) | Not confirmed |
| Human approval for high-risk steps | Named | Not confirmed | Named (Art. 14 human oversight) |
| Logs | Named | Not confirmed | Named (Art. 12 record-keeping) |
| Monitoring and anomaly blocking | Named | Not confirmed | Not confirmed |
| Emergency shutdown | Named | Not confirmed | Not confirmed |
Table 1. Evaluation across Asia at a glance
| Country or region | Main benchmarks and leaderboards | Rules that touch testing | Who runs the tests | Binding test duty? |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| China | C-Eval, CMMLU, SuperCLUE, OpenCompass, FlagEval, xbench | CAC filing (备案); GB/T 45654-2025; mandatory agent standard in drafting | Providers self-assess; CAICT, CESI and CNCERT test; CAC reviews | Yes, de facto through filing |
| Japan | JGLUE, Nejumi, Open Japanese LLM Leaderboard, Swallow | J-AISI red-teaming guide | J-AISI, universities, Weights & Biases Japan | No |
| South Korea | KMMLU, NIA benchmark for the sovereign-model contest | AI Basic Act, in force 22 Jan 2026 | Operators self-assess; Korea AISI; NIA for the contest | Self-assessment only |
| Singapore and South-East Asia | SEA-HELM | AI Verify, Project Moonshot, AI tester accreditation | Accredited private testers; Singapore AISI | No, voluntary |
| India | MILU, IndicSafe, Inspect India Evals, Indic LLM Arena, BharatBench | AISI proposed in a Jan 2026 white paper | Universities, labs, IndiaAI | No |
| Gulf | Open Arabic LLM Leaderboard | Not researched | Not researched | Not researched |
| Latin America | CHOCLO and Trueque (CENIA) | Not researched | CENIA | Not researched |
Table 2. First-generation Chinese benchmarks
| Benchmark | Released | What it tests | 2026 status |
|---|---|---|---|
| C-Eval | May 2023 | Multiple-choice questions at four levels across 52 disciplines, plus a "Hard" subset[14][14] C-Eval, arXiv 2305.08322 Primary | Saturated; DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash base scores 92.1–93.1[4][4] DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash model card Primary |
| CMMLU | June 2023 | Chinese multitask knowledge; most of 18 models scored below 50% at launch[15][15] CMMLU, arXiv 2306.09212 Primary | Saturated; ERNIE-5.5-Flash-Base scores 90.0[20][20] ERNIE-5.5-Flash-Base model card Primary |
| AGIEval | April 2023 | Human exams, incl. the gaokao (高考) and the bar exam[21][21] AGIEval, arXiv 2304.06364 Primary | Still in base tables; DeepSeek scores 83.4–84.4[4][4] DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash model card Primary |
| SafetyBench | Sept 2023 | 11,435 multiple-choice safety questions in 7 categories, Chinese and English[22][22] SafetyBench, arXiv 2309.07045 Primary | No 2026 use found |
| CValues | July 2023 | Chinese human values; adversarial prompts in 10 scenarios[23][23] CValues, arXiv 2307.09705 Primary | No 2026 use found |
| JADE | Nov 2023 | Linguistic fuzzing; broke 18 models, 70% average unsafe output[24][24] JADE, arXiv 2311.00286 Primary | No 2026 use found |
| ForesightSafety Bench | Feb 2026 (v4) | Frontier-risk safety from 7 pillars, extended to embodied AI and AI for science[25][25] ForesightSafety Bench, arXiv 2602.14135 Primary | New |
Table 3. China's three leaderboard operators
| Operator | Owner | Method | Activity in 2026 | Closest Western analogue |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| SuperCLUE | CLUE team, commercial | Closed, private questions refreshed each round; six areas scored out of 100[16][16] DataLearner, SuperCLUE page Secondary | March 2026 round with 22 models; later round in autumn[19][19] AIBase on SuperCLUE March 2026 Secondary[16][16] DataLearner, SuperCLUE page Secondary | Scale SEAL, Artificial Analysis |
| OpenCompass (司南) and CompassArena | Shanghai AI Lab, with ModelScope | Open toolkit with "100+ datasets"; anonymous arena battles with Elo scores[17][17] OpenCompass repository data Primary[26][26] QbitAI on CompassArena Secondary | Monthly boards; repository updated 5 Nov 2026[17][17] OpenCompass repository data Primary[27][27] OpenCompass column on CSDN Secondary | HELM plus LMArena |
| FlagEval | BAAI | "Capability–task–metric" framework; arena since June 2023; debate board[28][28] QbitAI on FlagEval Secondary | Embodied-AI board; multimodal repository quiet since April 2026[29][29] FlagEval-Robo (formerly FlagEval-Embodied Verse), Hugging Face Space Primary[18][18] FlagEvalMM repository data Primary | Academic platforms |
Table 4. Benchmark-gaming claims about Chinese models
| Claim | Who made it | Strength of evidence |
|---|---|---|
| Models show evaluation awareness: Claude 4.5 Opus near 80%, Kimi K2.6 60%, GLM 5.1 39%, DeepSeek V4 Pro 17% | Neo Research, Singapore, 14 June 2026[6][6] The Next Web on Neo Research Secondary[42][42] SCMP on Neo Research Secondary | Independent lab; adapted Anthropic misalignment scenarios |
| DeepSeek V4 Pro fell to the "Do Anything Now" jailbreak; Qwen3.6-Max and Kimi K2.6 resisted | Neo Research[6][6] The Next Web on Neo Research Secondary | Same study |
| The published evidence does not support "caught gaming" headlines | Startup Fortune[41][41] Startup Fortune on safety-test gaming Secondary | Commentary that disputes the coverage |
| Chinese models are "optimized for benchmarks instead of real-world use" | Dario Amodei, as reported[44][44] OfficeChai on Dario Amodei Secondary | Opinion; the same article says contamination hits US labs too |
| Chinese models fall short on contamination-resistant tests such as ARC-AGI-2 | MindStudio blog[39][39] MindStudio blog on the benchmark gap Secondary | Low quality; speculative causes |
| MiniMax M2.5 had contamination and harness flaws | AI CERTs[40][40] AI CERTs on MiniMax M2.5 Secondary | Low quality; no primary evidence |
| A Chinese physical-AI start-up manipulated a global ranking | SCMP question[45][45] SCMP on a physical-AI ranking Secondary | Paywalled; we could not read it |
Table 5. CAC filings, December 2025 to August 2026
| Date | Filed services | Local registrations | Source quality |
|---|---|---|---|
| 31 Dec 2025 | 748 | 435 | Two news reports[46][46] IT之家 on CAC filings at end-2025 Secondary[48][48] The Paper on CAC filings at end-2025 Secondary |
| 28 Feb 2026 | 796 | 481 | Search summary only; page not opened[49][49] Guangming on CAC filings Single source |
| 30 Apr 2026 | 868 | 530 | News report[47][47] IT之家 on CAC filings in April 2026 Secondary |
| 30 Jun 2026 | 988 | 598 | Search summary only; page not opened[50][50] Tonghuashun on CAC filings Single source |
| 31 Aug 2026 | 1,112 | 731 | News report[1][1] Beijing News on CAC filings Secondary |
Table 6. Testing requirements in GB/T 45654-2025, Appendix B
| Item | Requirement |
|---|---|
| Keyword library | At least 10,000 entries covering 17 risks; weekly updates |
| Generated-content test bank | At least 2,000 questions covering all 31 risk types; at least 50 per main risk; monthly updates |
| Must-refuse bank (应拒答) | At least 500 questions |
| Must-answer bank (非拒答) | At least 500 questions, incl. "China's system, beliefs, image, culture … heroic martyrs" |
| Spot checks | At least 1,000 manual and 1,000 automated questions, plus at least 300 refusal questions |
| Pass mark, content | At least 90% of outputs "qualified" |
| Pass mark, must-refuse | At least 95% refused |
| Pass mark, must-answer | At most 5% refused |
| Training data | A source is barred if more than 5% of it is illegal or unhealthy |
Table 7. TC260 timeline
| Date | Event |
|---|---|
| 31 Mar–3 Apr 2026 | Standards Week in Zhuhai creates WG9 (AI Security), chaired by Shanghai AI Lab director Zhou Bowen[54][54] SESEC on TC260 Standards Week 2026 Secondary |
| Same week | WG9 has 89 members incl. Microsoft (China), AWS (Beijing), Dell, Siemens and Fujifilm; reviews 8 proposals and 5 standards in progress; starts 2 mandatory projects[54][54] SESEC on TC260 Standards Week 2026 Secondary |
| 17 Apr–19 May 2026 | Consults on, then adopts, ethics and safety guidelines for AI applications[56][56] Digital Policy Alert on TC260 ethics guidelines Secondary |
| 12–13 May 2026 | Second WG9 plenary in Shanghai discusses 16 proposed national standards[55][55] Trivium China on the WG9 plenary Single source |
| 27 Jun 2026 | Plan for the mandatory agent-security standard, 18-month cycle[7][7] CGTN on the agent safety standard Single source |
| 26 Aug–25 Oct 2026 | Seven drafts for comment, incl. an assessment method for AI security capability maturity (人工智能安全能力成熟度评估方法)[57][57] Secrss on TC260's August 2026 drafts Secondary |
Table 8. CAICT rounds
| Round | Scope | Results |
|---|---|---|
| April 2024 (first AI Safety Benchmark) | 8 models; 7,343 questions; with AIIA and 17 other bodies[58][58] ChinAI #261 on CAICT's first results Secondary | First published results |
| July 2025 | 15 models: 2 DeepSeek, 9 Qwen, 4 GLM[43][43] ChinAI #351 on CAICT's 2026 round Secondary | 1 "controllable", 3 low, 9 medium, 2 high risk; mostly anonymous |
| 2026 (announced March) | Coding-model safety, R&D platform trust, AI smartphone safety, automated agent safety tests, "AI coding autonomy rate"[43][43] ChinAI #351 on CAICT's 2026 round Secondary | Registration June–July; certificates follow |
Table 9. Japan: evaluation assets
| Asset | Owner | What it does | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| JGLUE | Academic, LREC 2022 | Japanese language understanding[79][79] JGLUE, ACL Anthology Primary | Foundational |
| ELYZA-tasks-100 | ELYZA | Japanese instruction following[80][80] ELYZA-tasks-100 on Hugging Face Primary | Unchanged since Dec 2023 |
| Nejumi Leaderboard | Weights & Biases Japan | Comprehension, answer quality and safety[68][68] aipicks glossary, Nejumi Leaderboard Secondary | Nejumi 4 in use in 2026[71][71] lilting.ch on Japanese LLM options Secondary |
| Open Japanese LLM Leaderboard | LLM-jp and Hugging Face | 16 tasks through llm-jp-eval[69][69] Gigazine on the Open Japanese LLM Leaderboard Secondary | Updated 30 Oct 2026[81][81] Open Japanese LLM Leaderboard Space data Primary |
| Swallow leaderboard | Institute of Science Tokyo | Adds JamC-QA, a Japan-specific knowledge set[82][82] Swallow leaderboard, about page Primary | Moved to swallow-evaluation-instruct v202510 |
| Guide to Red Teaming Methodology | J-AISI | Method for red-teaming AI systems[83][83] J-AISI, Guide to Red Teaming Methodology Primary | v1.10 (March 2025) added a RAG example;[70][70] J-AISI, red-teaming guide v1.10 summary Primary no 2026 revision found |
Table 10. Korea: AI Basic Act duties
| Duty | Who it applies to | What it requires |
|---|---|---|
| High-impact AI | Operators of systems in high-impact uses | Self-assess before deployment, or ask the science ministry (MSIT); explanation, user protection, human oversight, documentation; best efforts on a fundamental-rights impact check |
| "High-performance AI" | Models trained with at least 10^26 FLOPs | Lifecycle risk-management plan, results reported to MSIT |
| Domestic agent | Foreign firms above set thresholds | Name a representative in Korea |
| Sanctions | All covered firms | Fines up to KRW 30 million after a one-year grace period |
Table 11. Singapore: testing programmes
| Programme | Launched | What it does | Status in Nov 2026 |
|---|---|---|---|
| AI Verify Tester Accreditation | 2026 | Accredits testing firms against the IMDA Starter Kit; no fees; 12-month term[9][9] AI Verify Foundation, AI Tester Accreditation Primary | Five firms: AIDX, Knovel, PwC, Resaro, Vulcan |
| Project Moonshot | May 2024 | Open toolkit for red-teaming, benchmarking and baseline tests, with MLCommons[88][88] Allen & Gledhill on Project Moonshot Secondary | In use |
| Agentic AI governance framework | Jan 2026, Davos | Five risk categories, incl. wrong and unauthorised actions[89][89] GAICC on Singapore's agentic AI framework Single source | Promotional source only |
| Agent testing guidance and assessor accreditation | Oct 2026 | Extends guidance to autonomous agents; accredits assessors; forms a cyber task force[10][10] MLex on Singapore agent testing Single source | Sector cyber guidance due H1 2027; single source |
| SEA-HELM | 2025 | Holistic evaluation in seven South-East Asian languages, five pillars[90][90] SEA-HELM, arXiv 2502.14301 Primary | Updated 18 Sept 2026; 75 open-weight and 16 closed models[75][75] SEA-HELM leaderboard Primary |
Table 12. India: evaluation assets
| Asset | Date | What it tests | Key result |
|---|---|---|---|
| MILU | Nov 2024 | 8 domains, 41 subjects, 11 Indic languages, from regional and state exams[91][91] MILU, arXiv 2411.02538 Primary | Baseline knowledge set |
| IndicSafe | March 2026 | 6,000 cultural safety prompts in 12 Indic languages, 10 models[11][11] IndicSafe, arXiv 2603.17915 Primary | 12.8% cross-language agreement |
| Inspect India Evals | July 2026 | Six benchmarks on Inspect: MMLU in 16 languages, BharatBBQ bias, a DPI safety test, multi-turn jailbreaks[74][74] Inspect India Evals, arXiv 2607.25375 Primary | Sarvam-M and Gemma 2 tied at 80% on the India Fairness Index; DPI safety 20% to 100% |
| SurakshaEval | Aug 2026 | Human-written Indic safety prompts in 10 languages[92][92] SurakshaEval on alphaXiv Single source | Search summary only |
| Indic LLM Arena | Not stated | Crowd-sourced battles on language, context and safety; AI4Bharat at IIT Madras with Google Cloud[93][93] AI4Bharat, Indic LLM Arena Primary | Live |
| BharatBench | Not stated | Ola Krutrim; 8 Indic languages across text, vision and speech[94][94] Ola Krutrim, BharatBench report Vendor | Vendor benchmark |
95 sources, numbered as cited in the report.
- [1] Beijing News on CAC filings. It reports 1,112 filed services and 731 registrations by 31 August 2026. Secondary m.bjnews.com.cn
- [2] CSET translation of GB/T 45654-2025. It gives the English text of the generative AI safety standard and its test numbers. Primary cset.georgetown.edu
- [3] AIGL summary of Concordia AI's 2026 report. It summarises the state of AI safety in China in 2026. Secondary aigl.blog
- [4] DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash model card. It gives base and chat benchmark tables and a harness-sensitivity table. Primary huggingface.co
- [5] GLM-5.3 model card. It reports Z.ai's benchmarks against Western and Chinese rivals. Primary huggingface.co
- [6] The Next Web on Neo Research. It reports evaluation-awareness and jailbreak results for US and Chinese models. Secondary thenextweb.com
- [7] CGTN on the agent safety standard. It reports the plan for a mandatory national standard on AI agent security (single source). Single source news.cgtn.com
- [8] Cooley on Korea's AI Basic Act. It summarises the Act's duties, thresholds and fines. Secondary cooley.com
- [9] AI Verify Foundation, AI Tester Accreditation. It lists the accredited firms and the programme terms. Primary aiverifyfoundation.sg
- [10] MLex on Singapore agent testing. It reports the extension of testing guidance to autonomous agents (single source). Single source mlex.com
- [11] IndicSafe, arXiv 2603.17915. It tests culturally grounded safety prompts in 12 Indic languages. Primary arxiv.org
- [12]
- [13] Buenos Aires Times on LatamGPT. It reports the LatamGPT launch in Santiago. Secondary batimes.com.ar
- [14] C-Eval, arXiv 2305.08322. It introduces the Chinese multi-level knowledge benchmark. Primary arxiv.org
- [15]
- [16] DataLearner, SuperCLUE page. It describes the SuperCLUE method and lists later scores. Secondary datalearner.com
- [17] OpenCompass repository data. It gives the stars, last update and self-description of OpenCompass. Primary github.com
- [18] FlagEvalMM repository data. It shows the activity of FlagEval's multimodal repository. Primary github.com
- [19]
- [20] ERNIE-5.5-Flash-Base model card. It reports Baidu's base-model scores, including CMMLU. Primary huggingface.co
- [21] AGIEval, arXiv 2304.06364. It introduces the human-exam benchmark with gaokao questions. Primary arxiv.org
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