China Calls for New Global AI Body amid Fierce Competition with US
China has called for the establishment of a new organization to promote global cooperation on artificial intelligence (AI), reported Reuters.
The move is widely seen as an attempt by China to position itself as an alternative to the US as the two countries feverishly compete for dominance in this pivotal technology.
Coordinating Global Efforts
During the annual World Artificial Intelligence Conference (WAIC) in Shanghai, China’s Premier, Li Qiang, said that Beijing wants to contribute to coordinating international efforts to regulate the fast-evolving AI technology and share the Chinese advances in that critical field.
Li added that Beijing advocates for open AI access, promoting equal rights for its use by all nations and businesses. He added that China is ready to share its expertise and products with other countries, especially the Global South – a term that refers to developing, emerging or lower-income countries, mostly in the southern hemisphere.
The state-sponsored WAIC conference attracts leading companies, government officials, researchers and investors. This year’s edition has seen the participation of more than 800 companies, displaying 3,000 high-tech products, 40 large language models, 50 AI-powered devices and 60 intelligent robots.
AI Regulation
The Chinese Premier pointed to the challenge of regulating AI’s growing risks, which included an insufficient supply of AI chips and restrictions on talent exchange, highlighting the importance of global consensus.
“Overall global AI governance is still fragmented. Countries have great differences particularly in terms of areas such as regulatory concepts, institutional rules,” he said.
“We should strengthen coordination to form a global AI governance framework that has broad consensus as soon as possible,” Li added.
Global Governance
During the conference, China’s Vice Foreign Minister, Ma Zhaoxu, said that Beijing wanted the proposed organization to foster pragmatic cooperation in AI.
The organization’s headquarters would likely be in Shanghai, Ma told a roundtable of representatives from over 30 countries, including Russia, South Africa, Qatar, South Korea and Germany.
Moreover, the Chinese Foreign Ministry unveiled an action plan for global AI governance, calling on governments, international organizations, enterprises and research institutions to collaborate and foster international exchanges including through a cross-border open-source community.
US-China Competition
The Shanghai conference took place amid a heated technological competition between the US and China, with the AI at the center stage.
On Wednesday, the US President, Donald Trump, revealed an AI action plan aimed at loosening restrictions on the development and deployment of artificial intelligence. It aims to expand American AI exports to allies, in an attempt to maintain the American edge over China in this critical technology.
Without explicitly mentioning Washington, Li appeared to refer to the US’ efforts to hamper China’s advances in AI, warning that the technology risked becoming the “exclusive game” of a few countries and companies.
The US has banned advanced technology exports to China, including the most high-end AI chips made by companies such as Nvidia, and chipmaking equipment, citing concerns that the technology could boost China’s military capabilities.
However, these measures failed to curb China’s advancements as Beijing has continued making AI breakthroughs.
AI Race
As the AI is poised to be the most transformative technology of the 21st century, it has become the key battleground in the technological competition between Washington and Beijing.
Although the US is still dominating in the production of top AI models, China is closing the gap, according to Stanford’s 2025 AI Index Report, issued in April.
While the US leads in AI models quantity, China has rapidly shrunk the quality gap to near parity across major benchmarks in 2024. Furthermore, Beijing maintains its leadership in AI publications and patents, the report noted.
“The race is tighter than ever, and no one has a clear lead,” the Stanford report authors concluded.
