Speaking in Shanghai, Xi announced training programs for developing nations and called the newly formed WAICO a milestone for global AI governance
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Chinese President Xi Jinping used the opening ceremony of the 2026 World Artificial Intelligence Conference in Shanghai on Friday to frame China as the leading advocate for open-source AI, pledging resources to developing nations and positioning Beijing as an alternative to Washington's approach to governing the technology.
In a keynote address at the conference, known as WAIC, Xi called on countries to "encourage open source, openness, collaboration and sharing" and warned against any nation placing its own security interests above those of others — language widely understood as a reference to U.S. export controls on advanced chips and AI technology. Xi did not name the United States.
Xi announced that China will offer 5,000 spots in AI training and seminar programs to developing countries over the next five years, and pledged to build AI application cooperation centers alongside ASEAN, the Arab League, the African Union, BRICS, and other major regional blocs. He also said China will extend access to an AI-powered weather warning system to 30 countries.
The speech came a day after 29 countries signed on to establish the World Artificial Intelligence Cooperation Organization, or WAICO, which will be headquartered in Shanghai. Xi described the new organization as "a milestone in the history of world AI development," arguing that it answered calls from Global South countries that have long sought a larger voice in how AI is governed.
According to Reuters, the speech amounted to Xi's clearest articulation yet of China's ambitions to shape global AI governance, framing its open-source models as a public good and offering a counterweight to Washington's influence over the sector. The WAICO initiative is a rival to the U.S.-led "Pax Silica" initiative, which has signed up 35 countries, compared with 29 for WAICO. A person familiar with the U.S. position said that Kazakhstan is the sole country appearing on both membership lists, contending that the minimal overlap indicates most nations in Washington's coalition have declined to back Beijing's rival initiative.
Xi also addressed AI safety, calling for human oversight of AI systems and urging countries to establish early-warning and emergency-response mechanisms — his most extended remarks on the subject to date.
The conference's backdrop reflects a shifting competitive landscape. Chinese open-weight AI models have been closing the performance gap with U.S. systems while undercutting them on price, and adoption of Chinese open-source models has spread across global developer communities. Beijing-based startup Moonshot AI unveiled a new open model, Kimi K3, at the conference on Friday.
The momentum in open-source AI comes as Beijing weighs a potential countermove: officials have been meeting with Alibaba, ByteDance, and others to discuss possible restrictions on overseas access to China's most capable AI models, a tension Xi's speech did not address directly.
The WAIC conference runs through July 20. Attendees include United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres, Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, and Thai Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul.
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