(Reuters) - Chinese authorities are instructing the country's top artificial intelligence entrepreneurs and researchers to avoid travel to the United States, the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday, citing people familiar with the matter.

The authorities are concerned that Chinese AI experts traveling abroad could divulge confidential information about the nation's progress, the newspaper said.

Authorities also fear that executives could be detained and used as a bargaining chip in U.S.-China negotiations, the Journal said, drawing parallels to the detention of a Huawei executive in Canada at Washington's request during the first Trump administration.

The White House and China's State Council Information Office did not immediately respond to requests from Reuters for comment.

Executives at leading Chinese companies in AI and other strategically sensitive industries, such as robotics, are being discouraged from traveling to the U.S. and its allies unless absolutely necessary, the Journal report said.

Executives who choose to travel are instructed to report their plans before leaving and, upon returning, to brief authorities on what they did and whom they met, the report said.

Chinese AI startup DeepSeek founder Liang Wenfeng declined an invitation to attend an AI summit in Paris in February, according to the report. Another founder of a major Chinese AI startup canceled a planned U.S. trip last year following instructions from Beijing, the Journal added.

U.S. and China are locked in a global AI race, with DeepSeek recently launching AI models that it claims rival or surpass U.S. industry leaders like OpenAI and Google, at significantly lower cost.

In February, President Xi Jinping held a rare meeting with some of the biggest names in China's technology sector, urging them to "show their talent" and be confident in the power of China's model and market.