Xi Jinping vows to make AI for all in debut at China’s top tech summit
His comments come as Beijing grapples with balancing openness and national security as models grow more capable
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[SHANGHAI/ HONG KONG] Chinese President Xi Jinping hailed China’s progress in developing low-cost artificial intelligence, pressing his personal imprint on the country’s rapidly expanding global influence to call for a more open technological order.
Xi used his first appearance at the World AI Conference in Shanghai on Friday (Jul 17) to urge the world to adhere to an inclusive approach, encouraging collaboration without rivalries.
“AI development should not be a solo performance by a single country, but a symphony of international cooperation,” he said.
His presence at the gathering, attended by scores of tech and government leaders, conveys a potent signal of China’s ambitions to dominate a technological sphere with the potential to revolutionise industry and economies – an effort that has shot to the top of the nation’s agenda.
Chinese models are winning over companies worldwide, with their share of US firms’ AI usage nearing a record 60 per cent on the popular marketplace OpenRouter.
Behind the rhetoric, Beijing is grappling with the balance between openness and national security as models grow more capable.
Chinese officials recently discussed with companies including Alibaba Group – developer of the popular Qwen models – how to mitigate the security risks posed by their increasingly powerful models, people familiar with the matter said.
The talks are early, with no enforcement planned, but restricting foreign access to top models was among the options raised, the people said.
Reuters previously reported that Beijing was weighing curbs on overseas access. Alibaba and the Commerce Ministry did not respond to requests for comment.
Global AI governance has emerged as a new battleground for the world’s leading powers.
With the cybersecurity threat of cutting-edge AI looming large over both countries, Washington has in recent weeks pressured prominent American labs such as Anthropic to curtail foreign access to advanced models.
China is looking to build its own AI ecosystem that offers its citizens and global customers a cheaper alternative to US technology.
It also wants to secure its own AI supply chain that can guarantee access for its companies and government agencies.
As part of this effort, Beijing has earmarked two trillion yuan (US$295.3 billion) over the next five years to creating a network of interconnected data centres across the country, Bloomberg News reported in June.
Beijing is expected to mobilise its institutions and enact supportive policies to fire up an industry considered key to countering the US, while weaning the local market off American technologies that Washington is restricting access to.
That effort relies on the sustained growth and advancement of national champions including Nvidia-rival Huawei Technologies, memory chip linchpin CXMT and pioneering AI labs such as DeepSeek.
The overarching plan represents Beijing’s most aggressive endeavour yet to lay the foundation for future Chinese AI development. It recalls the undertakings of years past that channelled resources to support national champions like Huawei, with the aim of replacing US technology.
But the venture pales in comparison to the US$725 billion that US leaders such as Meta Platforms and Microsoft are setting aside for AI in 2026 alone.
Chinese data centres in general cost less than in the US because of cheaper labour, component and construction costs, and local government incentives.
In May, Xi hosted US President Donald Trump and discussed AI guardrails and Nvidia’s H200 chips, which are starting to trickle into China after a government ban.
Xi and Trump are due to meet again in September, with the AI race top of the agenda.
Fair AI governance
The Chinese president on Friday also called for a fair and equitable global AI governance system and vowed support for developing and emerging nations in the Global South to strengthen AI capacity-building, according to state-run media.
Xi stressed the importance of bridging the digital divide to prevent “new historical injustices” in the technology field and pledged that Beijing would provide 5,000 training opportunities for developing countries over the next five years.
Xi also said that China will establish centres for AI application cooperation with members of blocs such as Asean, the African Union and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization.
The Chinese president said AI should serve as a “trusted tool” for humanity and called on countries to ensure that the technology remains “firmly under human control” to prevent misuse and abuse.
Xi also said the World Artificial Intelligence Cooperation Organization, which was established Thursday in Shanghai to promote collaboration to ensure orderly AI development, marked a “significant milestone” in the history of the technological development.
The 29 signatories of the new AI cooperation body headquartered in Shanghai include China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Laos and Pakistan.
UN secretary-general Antonio Guterres was among those attending a signing ceremony. BLOOMBERG, REUTERS
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