China formally launched the World AI Cooperation Organization this week, positioning itself as a rival power center to the US led approach to global AI governance. The announcement came a day before President Xi Jinping delivered his first ever in person keynote at the World AI Conference in Shanghai, an event he had skipped every year since it launched in 2018. His message was blunt: AI should be “a symphony of global cooperation” rather than, in his words, a solo performance by any single country.

What China just signed

On July 16, twenty nine countries including Pakistan, Russia, and Kazakhstan signed an agreement establishing the World Artificial Intelligence Cooperation Organization, or WAICO, an intergovernmental body headquartered in Shanghai. Chinese state media described it as a new institution for global AI governance, and Beijing framed it as answering a request from the Global South for a seat at the table on how AI gets regulated worldwide.

The following morning, Xi opened the conference proper. Themed “Intelligent Partners, Co create the Future,” the four day event ran through July 20 and drew more than 140 forums, 1,400 guests, and 1,100 exhibitors, with over 300 products making their global debut. UN Secretary General António Guterres spoke at the opening ceremony, along with the leaders of Kazakhstan, Cambodia, and Thailand.

What Xi actually said

Xi’s core argument was that AI governance should not be dictated by one nation. He also pushed back on what he called the overstretching of national security concerns in AI policy, and urged countries to avoid placing one nation’s security above another’s. He never named the United States directly, but the timing made the target clear. Washington has spent the past several years building an export control regime that restricts China’s access to advanced chips and AI hardware, and Xi’s speech read as a direct answer to that pressure, an alternative built on membership rather than restriction.

Alongside the diplomacy, China used the conference floor to make its industrial case. Huawei showed off its Atlas 950 SuperPoD, a large scale AI computing system, and the broader event doubled as a showcase for China’s push toward open source AI as a point of differentiation from the more closed, proprietary approach favored by leading US labs. That lines up with a trend we’ve been tracking closely: Chinese labs like Moonshot shipping increasingly capable, cheaper models at a pace that’s hard to ignore.

The developing world pledge

The most concrete commitments in Xi’s speech were aimed squarely at the Global South. China pledged 5,000 AI training and seminar opportunities for developing countries over the next five years, along with access for 30 countries to a Chinese built AI powered early warning weather tool. Xi also said China would deepen AI cooperation with the African Union, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, the League of Arab States, the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, and BRICS, framing the effort as a way to prevent what he called historical injustice in AI, a reference to wealthier nations getting first and disproportionate access to transformative technology.

It is worth being honest about what this is and is not, right now. WAICO exists on paper. As of this writing, it does not yet have a public website or a published charter beyond the founding agreement itself, one more sign the organization is still more announcement than institution. Whether it becomes a functioning body with real influence over global AI rules, or stays a diplomatic gesture Beijing can point to without much behind it, depends on which countries actually show up and what, if anything, gets built through it in the next year.

Where this lands against what we already know

This is also worth reading against ground truth. Back in May, Microsoft’s Global AI Diffusion Report found that only 17.8% of the world’s working age population had used a generative AI tool in the first quarter of 2026, and that the gap between the Global North and Global South was widening, not closing, up to 12.1 percentage points from 10.6 the quarter before. Some countries in Sub Saharan Africa sat below 10% adoption, with infrastructure and language access cited as the real barriers, not lack of interest. We covered that report in full here.

China’s pledge of training slots and cooperation agreements looks good on paper, but paper is all it is right now. It does not solve electricity access, internet reliability, or the lack of AI tools built for local languages, which is what Microsoft’s data says is actually holding adoption back. WAICO is a signing ceremony until it is a track record.

That track record will take shape over the next year, in whether member countries actually receive those training slots, and whether the organization does anything beyond issue statements. It is a story we will be watching, and it is exactly the kind of follow up that is easy to miss once the initial headlines fade. If you want it in your inbox when it develops, that is what the newsletter is for.

FAQ

What is the World AI Cooperation Organization (WAICO)?
WAICO is a new intergovernmental body headquartered in Shanghai, established when 29 countries including Pakistan, Russia, and Kazakhstan signed an agreement with China on July 16, 2026. It is positioned as an alternative venue for global AI governance discussions, separate from Western led forums.

What did Xi Jinping announce at WAIC 2026?
Xi delivered his first ever in person keynote at the World AI Conference, calling for AI development to be a global cooperative effort rather than dominated by one country. He announced 5,000 AI training opportunities for developing nations over five years, weather AI access for 30 countries, and expanded cooperation with the African Union, ASEAN, the Arab League, and other regional blocs.

Does this affect countries outside China’s immediate allies?
Potentially, though it is early. The pledges target developing nations broadly, including parts of Africa, but the practical effects depend on implementation, which has not started yet.