Twenty-nine countries — including Russia, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, and Pakistan — signed the founding agreement for WAICO in Shanghai on July 16, establishing an intergovernmental organization headquartered in the city and, according to Nature's earlier analysis, designed to be open to all sovereign states with an orientation toward development and the Global South. UN Secretary-General António Guterres attended the signing ceremony; Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi signed on behalf of the government.
In his keynote the next day, Xi framed the organization as answering "the call of the Global South" and called AI development "a symphony of international cooperation" rather than a solo performance by any single country — a line widely read as a direct message to Washington. He announced that over the next five years China will provide developing countries with 5,000 AI training and seminar opportunities, and will build international AI application cooperation centers with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, the League of Arab States, the African Union, the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, and BRICS. China also unveiled the MAZU-FengYun Satellite AI Box, an AI-powered meteorological warning system it will make available to 30 countries.
Xi also called for AI to remain "secure and controllable" and "always under human control," while cautioning against countries "overstretching the national security concept" in AI policy or placing one nation's security above others' — remarks widely read as a response to recent US export-control and model-restriction moves.
