China's central government has warned state enterprises and agencies not to install OpenClaw on office computers this week, according to Bloomberg, as multiple government bodies moved to rein in the Austrian-developed AI agent following a surge in adoption across the country. The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology's National Vulnerability Database (NVDB) has also published security guidelines, and the People's Bank of China has added a separate warning on AI in the financial sector, the South China Morning Post reported.
OpenClaw, developed by Austrian programmer Peter Steinberger, is an autonomous AI agent that automates tasks including email management, calendar scheduling, and travel check-ins. Its adoption in China has been rapid enough to acquire a nickname — "raising lobsters," a reference to the app's mascot — and Tencent, Alibaba, Baidu, and MiniMax have all launched compatible tools. But there are widespread concerns around the fact that OpenClaw requires broad access to user files and can communicate externally, potentially exposing host machines to cyberattack or data leaks if OpenClaw isn’t used cautiously.
