Chinese President Xi Jinping has launched an expansive new vision for international artificial intelligence co-operation, presenting Beijing’s most comprehensive proposal yet to position itself as a global leader in AI development while strengthening its influence across the developing world. The initiative, unveiled at the World AI Conference in Shanghai, reflects China’s broader effort to build an alternative international framework to the US-led global order by making Chinese AI technologies more accessible to emerging economies.
According to reporting by the Financial Times, Xi announced that Chinese companies would make AI more widely available through open-source models while establishing international “application co-operation centres” to train thousands of people from developing countries in the use of the technology. Addressing delegates at the conference, Xi described the initiative as a response to the needs of the global south.
“This is a major move by China to answer the call of the global south,” Xi told participants as Chinese-developed humanoid robots, known as embodied AI, demonstrated the country’s advances in both artificial intelligence and advanced manufacturing throughout the exhibition.
The centrepiece of the initiative was Xi’s announcement of the 29-member World AI Cooperation Organisation (Waico), which analysts view as one of Beijing’s most ambitious efforts to reshape global governance around emerging technologies. The move comes as China increasingly seeks to fill what it regards as a leadership vacuum created by the United States’ withdrawal from various international organisations, complementing earlier initiatives spanning infrastructure, security, governance and development.
Analysts say Beijing has repeatedly introduced broad international initiatives with limited initial detail before gradually expanding them into extensive networks of Chinese-led institutions, agreements and partnerships. In the case of AI, they argue that establishing leadership in global adoption and technical standards would give China significant influence over one of the most transformative technologies since the emergence of the internet.
Arindrajit Basu, a doctoral researcher at Leiden University, said China’s AI strategy reflects an effort to shape global technological norms in ways that were not possible during the early development of the internet, which evolved largely according to American liberal values.
Xi’s latest announcement builds on several years of Chinese efforts to integrate AI into its foreign policy. One of the earliest foundations was the Digital Silk Road, launched in 2015 as part of the Belt and Road Initiative. The programme has supported participating countries in developing telecommunications infrastructure, cloud computing, artificial intelligence, e-commerce, mobile payment systems, surveillance technologies and smart cities using Chinese expertise and equipment. According to the Council on Foreign Relations, about one-third of the approximately 150 countries participating in the Belt and Road programme have also joined the Digital Silk Road.
A turning point came in January 2025 with what became known as the “DeepSeek moment”, when a Chinese company challenged the dominance of American large language models. According to Chinese foreign ministry announcements cited by the Financial Times, references to artificial intelligence in meetings between China’s senior leadership and foreign counterparts increased sharply following that development, highlighting AI’s growing prominence within Beijing’s diplomatic agenda.
China has already begun building regional AI partnerships. Last year it established the China-ASEAN Countries Artificial Intelligence (AI) Application Cooperation Center with Southeast Asian nations to support AI infrastructure, open-source platforms and talent development. In Shanghai, Xi announced plans to establish similar centres with organisations across Africa, the Middle East and Latin America, significantly expanding the initiative’s global reach.
Waico’s initial membership includes several countries from the Brics grouping, including Brazil, Russia, Indonesia and South Africa, although India is not among the members. George Chen, partner and co-chair of digital practice at Asia Group, said China intends to almost double the organisation’s membership and described Waico as an effective platform for exporting Chinese technology and open-source AI models throughout the developing world.
He argued that many countries in the global south face barriers to adopting expensive proprietary AI systems offered by companies such as OpenAI and Anthropic while lacking the resources to develop their own domestic alternatives. In that context, China’s approach could provide what he described as an attractive alternative.
Observers have compared the emerging competition to the long-standing rivalry between Google’s open-source Android operating system and Apple’s closed iOS ecosystem. Kevin Xu, founder of Interconnected Capital, predicted that while companies such as OpenAI and Anthropic may continue generating the greatest commercial returns, a growing ecosystem of open-source models, many originating from China, could become widely adopted across international markets.
Nevertheless, analysts caution that China’s emphasis on open-source AI may evolve as commercial pressures increase. Some major Chinese technology companies, including Alibaba and ByteDance, have already shifted leading models towards closed systems as they seek to commercialise their technologies. China’s Ministry of Commerce has also discussed restricting overseas transfers of key training data and limiting foreign access to model weights.
China’s AI ambitions also continue to depend on critical hardware dominated by American companies, particularly Nvidia, whose chips remain central to training advanced AI models.
Even with those constraints, analysts believe China’s offer is likely to resonate with many developing countries seeking affordable access to advanced AI capabilities. By combining open-source technology with training, infrastructure and institutional support, Beijing is presenting itself not simply as a technology supplier but as a long-term development partner. As reported by the Financial Times, that strategy places artificial intelligence at the heart of China’s broader diplomatic effort to deepen engagement with the global south while expanding its influence over the future direction of global technology governance.
