A New Intergovernmental Body Takes Shape
<cite index="7-1,7-3">Twenty-nine countries signed an agreement in Shanghai on July 16, 2026, formally establishing the World Artificial Intelligence Cooperation Organization (WAICO) as an independent intergovernmental international organization headquartered in Shanghai.</cite> <cite index="7-4,7-5">Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi signed the agreement on behalf of the Chinese government, alongside representatives from founding members including Kazakhstan, Laos, Pakistan, Russia, and Indonesia.</cite>
<cite index="1-6,1-13">The signing ceremony took place on the eve of the annual World Artificial Intelligence Conference (WAIC), with United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres in attendance.</cite> <cite index="15-14">Speaking at WAIC for the first time in the summit's nine-year history, Chinese President Xi Jinping called the new body "an important milestone in the history of AI development" and pledged to provide 5,000 AI training opportunities to developing nations.</cite>
Origins and Membership
<cite index="2-7">The organization's origins trace to July 2025, when Premier Li Qiang announced its creation at the World Artificial Intelligence Conference in Shanghai, alongside a thirteen-point Global AI Governance Action Plan.</cite> <cite index="1-4">President Xi Jinping subsequently reiterated the proposal at the 33rd meeting of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation in October 2025.</cite>
<cite index="6-12,6-13">The 29 founding members include Russia, Belarus, Serbia, Cuba, Brazil, Venezuela, Kazakhstan, Laos, Pakistan, and Indonesia, forming a geographically diverse coalition spanning Africa, Asia, Latin America, and Eastern Europe.</cite> <cite index="15-9">No major Western democracy — including the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Japan, or Australia — signed on.</cite> <cite index="11-10">President Xi also pledged deployment of China's "Mazu" AI weather early-warning system in 30 countries over five years.</cite>
Stated Mission and Design
<cite index="18-4">Headquartered in Shanghai, WAICO is structured as an independent international organization guided by United Nations Charter principles, with a stated mission to promote "beneficial, safe, and fair" AI development.</cite> <cite index="5-8,5-9">The organization aims to deepen international cooperation in artificial intelligence, create a supply-demand matching platform, and promote practical AI cooperation, with its work revolving around three major goals: deepening innovation cooperation, promoting inclusive development, and strengthening collaborative governance.</cite>
<cite index="2-18,2-19">WAICO is presented as open to any sovereign state without a values test at the door, organized not around risk and rules but around development — widening access to AI, building capacity in countries that lack it, and closing what Chinese statements call the global intelligence gap.</cite>
Geopolitical Context
<cite index="3-12">Governance expert Arindrajit Basu, writing for the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, noted that "with Washington rapidly retreating from global cyber and AI norms-setting processes," Beijing is seeking to demonstrate global leadership.</cite> <cite index="10-18,10-19,10-20">At a recent UN AI dialogue, China and the US set out rival approaches: Washington argued that heavy regulation would stifle breakthroughs, while Beijing framed its low-cost, open-source large language models (LLMs) as a public good that could narrow global AI inequality.</cite>
<cite index="15-11,15-12">Countries aligned with WAICO could develop AI regulations that do not require compatibility with the EU AI Act, the OECD's AI Principles, or the G7's Hiroshima Process, pointing toward a bifurcated international AI governance landscape.</cite>
Institutional Limits
Analysts note that WAICO's founding charter, as written, contains no published enforcement mechanisms, compute thresholds, model evaluation requirements, or licensing regime. <cite index="1-17">Writing in *Nature* in 2025, Elizabeth Gibney speculated that WAICO will likely not govern the AI industry in an enforceable way.</cite> <cite index="1-16">Arindrajit Basu, writing for the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, suggested the Chinese government might intend to use WAICO to expand its network of AI cooperation centers or to shape AI policy discussions at the United Nations.</cite> The four-day WAIC conference running through July 20, 2026, is expected to produce the first substantive policy texts that could clarify the organization's regulatory direction.