(Yicai) June 25 -- ChatGPT developer OpenAI is stopping access to its application programming interface platform, which programmers use to build their own artificial intelligence applications, on the Chinese mainland, as well as the special administrative regions of Hong Kong and Macao, Securities Times reported today.

OpenAI will be taking additional measures to block API traffic to regions that are not on the supported countries list starting July 9, the San Francisco-based company said in an e-mail sent to users yesterday. The list contains 188 countries and regions but does not include China, Hong Kong and Macao.

OpenAI has probably made this move after taking multiple factors into account, such as legal compliance and data security, the report said. On June 22, the US Department of the Treasury proposed imposing curbs on US investment in China’s AI, semiconductors, quantum computing and other high-tech fields.

ChatGPT is not available on the mainland and OpenAI does not allow Chinese users to directly register and use its services, the report said, citing a market insider. The two main ways for Chinese users to use OpenAI are by getting linked to OpenAI’s APIs and by gaining access through Microsoft Azure.

The move will affect companies wishing to use OpenAI’s APIs to develop their own AI programs, the market insider said. Firms that do not find an alternative quickly will not be competitive and will be eliminated by the market.

The ban will spur Chinese large language model developers to speed up research and development and more startups are likely to choose homegrown LLMs to avoid future risks.

Editor: Kim Taylor