China's industry ministry tells AI service providers to build FDE teams, and Jiangsu starts a provincial FDE team registry

China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology has launched a special action to cultivate AI application service providers, the firms that do AI consulting, delivery, operations and security work for end users. Among its support measures, the notice explicitly encourages these providers to build forward deployed engineer (FDE) teams that stay on customer sites to get AI use cases running, alongside training "composite" talent who understand the business, the models, security and delivery.

Jiangsu's Department of Industry and Information Technology published its implementing notice on October 26. Providers registered in the province can file online from October 22 to November 10, and the provider profile now carries a separate FDE team option. Firms that already have an FDE team must also fill in a detailed form covering how the team is set up, headcount, how many people do on-site delivery, whether the role was newly created or just renamed from implementation or pre-sales, whether FDEs can commit code in customer environments, how they are assessed, promotion paths, annual cost per head, attrition, and at least three on-site delivery projects. The department says it will build a provincial provider pool, service groups and an FDE team library, and recommend the best providers to MIIT.

Why it matters for FDEs: this is the clearest sign yet that Chinese regulators treat the FDE as a distinct delivery role rather than a relabelled implementation job. The questions Jiangsu asks, such as code access, outcome-based assessment and career ladders, are a useful checklist for candidates judging whether an employer's "FDE" title is real, and inclusion in an official registry gives Chinese AI vendors a reason to formalize and grow these teams.