Xi Jinping made his first personal appearance at the World Artificial Intelligence Conference (WAIC) on Thursday, laying out China's vision for AI development and governance. His speech focused on open-source sharing, preventing loss of control, opposing monopoly by any single nation, and helping developing countries build AI capacity.
"AI should not be a one-man show by one country but a symphony of international cooperation," Xi said. China will encourage open source, openness, collaboration, and sharing to let more industries and enterprises use AI.
He also called for stronger AI regulation. Countries should improve laws and regulations, technical monitoring, risk warnings, and emergency mechanisms to continuously guard against technology getting out of control, ensuring AI serves humanity.
The most concrete promise in the speech: over the next five years, China will provide 5,000 AI training and seminar opportunities for developing countries and build an international AI application cooperation center. China will also advance AI capacity building with Asia, Africa, Latin America, and BRICS nations to avoid new global inequality created by technological progress.
Just one day before the conference opened, 29 countries signed an agreement to establish the World AI Cooperation Organization, headquartered in Shanghai. Xi called it a major milestone in the history of AI development.