Xi Jinping announces WAICO, backs open

China announced the Shanghai-based World Artificial Intelligence Cooperation Organization (WAICO), with 29 member countries including Pakistan, Russia and Indonesia. China made the announcement as it began its 15th Five-Year Plan. From July 17 to 20, it hosted the 2026 World AI Conference, an annual event it has organised since 2018—four years before the launch of ChatGPT

Here are a few important statements made by CCP President Xi Jinping in his keynote address:

Calls for open source, openness, collaboration and sharing AI models: “We should adhere to the principle of openness and win-win and boost innovation-driven development… We should seize this rare, historic opportunity to encourage open source, openness, collaboration and sharing. We should facilitate technological innovation, industrial development and scenario-based application of AI,” he said. He also called for AI innovations in the traditional and forward-looking industries to ensure AI benefits everyone.

Calls for monitoring and early warning systems to prevent abuse: “We should strengthen risk awareness and ensure that AI is secure and controllable…We should put in place laws and regulations, technological monitoring, early warning and emergency response systems in order to strengthen the line of security, prevent abuses and malicious use, and ensure that AI is always under human control.”

Calls for multilateral global cooperation to bridge AI digital divides: “We should practice true multilateralism and recognize the important role of the United Nations. We should enhance alignment and coordination on AI development strategies, governance rules and technical standards, so as to form a consensus-based global governance framework at an early date to make this frontier technology better benefit humanity. We must carry out extensive international cooperation and help Global South countries with capacity building to bridge the AI and digital divides, promote sustainable development, and prevent creating new historical injustice in AI.”

What is the WAICO? According to reports by China’s state-run media Xinhua News, WAICO will be a Shanghai-based ‘independent intergovernmental international organization’ with 29 countries as its members. ‘It aims to promote international cooperation and global governance on AI, ensuring that AI is beneficial, safe and fair, thereby promoting its healthy and orderly development to benefit all humanity,’ reads their news report. Read their press release here.

At the 2026 World AI Conference and High-Level Meeting on Global AI Governance, held in Shanghai from July 17 to 20, exhibitors showcased a wide range of AI agent hardware and systems aimed at demonstrating AI’s shift from a tool to an “intelligent partner” across industries and daily life.

A few highlights included an intelligent robot pharmacy, Ant Group’s agent business ecosystem, humanoid robots demonstrating picking-and-sorting tasks, and Luckin Coffee’s digital intelligence management system spanning its full industry chain.

The MAZU-FengYun Satellite AI Box is intended to provide early meteorological warnings to more than 30 countries

Among the conference’s headline exhibits were Huawei’s Atlas 950 AI computing super node, MiniMax’s M3 multimodal foundation model and the world’s first agentic AI phone.

You can explore over 1000 products presented at the conference here, on the World Artificial Intelligence Conference website.