Chinese President Xi Jinping called for inclusive global AI governance and rejected domination by any single nation as the 2026 World Artificial Intelligence Conference opened in Shanghai on Thursday, urging precise and effective oversight while opposing the broad application of national security concepts to the AI sector.
Xi outlined four guiding principles — open cooperation, risk awareness, inclusiveness, and solidarity — and announced 5,000 AI training slots for developing countries over the next five years. He also pledged to deploy China's Mazu smart weather-warning system in 30 nations. On the sidelines, 29 countries signed an agreement establishing the World AI Cooperation Organization to coordinate international policy.
The conference underscored China's growing footprint in the sector. The country's domestic AI market reached 1.2 trillion yuan in 2025, and China led generative AI patent filings with over 43,000 registrations between 2024 and 2025. Separately, Chinese startup Moonshot AI unveiled its Kimi K3 model with 2.8 trillion parameters.