Should You Sell Your Company Data to Chinese AI Labs?
AITrainingDataBroker.com
Should you sell
your data to
Chinese AI labs?
What Chinese AI labs buy, how they differ from US labs, and what US law says
Jimmy Lin
Should you sell your data to Chinese AI labs?
Should you sell or license your company data to Chinese AI labs?
They are buying, and they pay for the same kind of data as US AI labs, so let me start with how much they spend.
The video
Full script
Should you sell or license your company data to Chinese AI labs?
They are buying, and they pay for the same kind of data as US AI labs, so let me start with how much they spend.
In August 2026, Forbes reported that the top 6 Chinese AI labs spend about $500 million a year with American data companies.
That money pays for the same kind of data that US AI labs pay for, so sooner or later, many owners will ask if they should sell to them too.
Before we get into the answer, let me tell you who I am.
I'm Jimmy. I have worked in data at Fortune 500 companies, as a data analyst, a data engineer and a software engineer, and I am trained in data science. I am also a Canadian military veteran, where I specialized in data analysis and reporting.
Are you selling your data? We are your broker and technical advisor. We get you the best price, and we guide your team through the technical side, so your data stays private.
Are you buying data for an AI lab? We find the right data for you and see it through to delivery, so you can focus on advancing AI research.
So, who are these Chinese AI labs? You may know some of the names, like DeepSeek, Alibaba with its Qwen models, and Moonshot with its Kimi models.
Others are Zhipu and MiniMax, and then come the giants, ByteDance, which owns TikTok, and Tencent, which owns WeChat.
These are large companies with a lot of money to spend, and they keep buying data because they are racing to catch up with the US AI labs.
Now, what do they buy? In September 2026, Lawfare described the list, and it is the same shopping list that US AI labs use.
They buy expert work done step by step, they buy practice copies of real jobs, which is what RL means, AI learning by trial and error, and they buy tasks with a way to grade them.
So if your data is worth something to a US AI lab, it is very likely worth something to a Chinese AI lab as well.
The shopping list is the same, but the way they shop is not.
US AI labs buy directly and through data companies, and some of their deals are public, like News Corp with OpenAI and Reddit with Google.
Chinese AI labs buy mostly through US data companies, and they make very few deals public.
Why they pay is different too. US AI labs were sued for training on books without permission, and Anthropic agreed to pay authors $1.5 billion. So US labs pay for permission, to stay out of court.
Chinese AI labs pay to catch up with US models.
But buying is not the only way they get data.
In February 2026, Anthropic said that 3 Chinese AI labs, DeepSeek, Moonshot and MiniMax, ran about 16 million chats with its AI model, Claude, through about 24,000 fake accounts.
The goal was to copy how Claude answers, and that is one more reason Washington is now looking hard at who gets American data.
So what does US law say? Since April 2025, a Justice Department rule bans selling or licensing Americans' personal data in bulk to China, and that includes Hong Kong.
The part that surprises owners is that it still applies even with the names removed, and it covers health, money and location data, among others.
On the other hand, business data with no people in it, like drawings, code or process data, is not covered by this rule today.
Either way, ask your lawyer before you license data to any AI company outside the US.
And the rules are only moving in one direction.
In April 2024, a new US law limited the sale of Americans' data to rival countries, and in April 2025 the Justice Department rule took effect.
Then, after the Forbes report in August 2026, Lawfare proposed in September that AI training data should be covered too, which could reach business data as well.
So a deal that is allowed today may not be allowed next year, which matters if your license runs for several years.
Here is the practical part, because your data can reach a Chinese AI lab without you selling to one directly, through a data company in the middle.
So, wherever an AI company is based, ask 4 questions: who will use the data in the end, and which country is that company in?
Then, can the data be passed on to anyone else, and is that written into the contract, so it is a promise and not just a word?
Asking those questions is part of my job, as your broker and technical advisor.
As your broker, I bring your data to several AI companies and AI labs so they compete for it, and I work through the terms with you, while you make the final call.
As your technical advisor, I guide your team through the export, we de-identify your data first, and we write who may use your data into the contract before you license it.
Nothing moves until your team signs off. AI companies pay my fee.
Chinese AI labs want the same data as US AI labs, so the real question is who gets your data, under which law and with which limits in the contract.
If you run a company with 30 or more people, the data you already have could become a new revenue stream. You can find out if yours qualifies, for free, at AITrainingDataBroker.com.
If you have further questions, leave them in the comments, and I will answer them in the next video.
Thank you for watching, and I will see you next time.
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