Chinese leader attending global AI conference in Shanghai for first time
PUBLISHED : 16 Jul 2026 at 11:20
BEIJING – Chinese President Xi Jinping is expected to outline an ambitious vision for China’s role in global AI governance at a forum on Friday, as Huawei showcases its most advanced AI computing cluster yet in a sign of Beijing’s drive to build a domestic alternative to US technology.
Xi’s attendance at the annual World Artificial Intelligence Conference (WAIC) for the first time underscores Beijing’s view of AI as both a driver of economic growth and a strategic technology in global competition.
Thai Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul is also scheduled to attend the conference as part of his five-day official visit to China, as will UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.
Huawei’s Atlas 950 SuperPoD large-scale AI computing system will make its public debut during the forum being held in Shanghai from July 17-20. The launch is one of the clearest demonstrations yet of China’s efforts to assemble such systems without US giant Nvidia’s most advanced chips.
Designed for large-scale AI training and inference, the system links thousands of Huawei’s Ascend AI processors through high-speed interconnects so they operate as a single computing cluster.
DeepSeek’s latest V4 model has been adapted to run entirely on clusters built using Huawei’s Ascend chips, highlighting progress by Chinese firms in building AI ecosystems independent of US technology. Domestic media reported that Chinese chipmakers including Biren and MetaX would also release new “supernode” computing clusters.
AI governance
The gathering comes as Washington and Beijing prepare for their first government-level AI talks under US President Donald Trump’s administration, turning WAIC from a technology showcase into an early test of how China intends to compete for influence over the rules governing AI worldwide.
The two rivals set out competing visions for AI governance at a United Nations AI dialogue last week, where Washington argued that sweeping regulation would stifle tech breakthroughs and Beijing framed its low-cost, open-source AI models as a public good that would bridge global AI inequality.
“Against this backdrop, the WAIC has become more than a technology showcase; it is now a geopolitical stage where Beijing seeks to articulate its vision of AI as both a national priority and a diplomatic instrument,” wrote George Chen, chair of digital practice at the Asia Group.
In a January speech, Xi compared AI to an “epoch-making, major technological transformation following the steam engine”, and Beijing has explicitly bet future growth on diffusing AI throughout its economy and achieving self-sufficiency in frontier technologies.
China proposed the creation of a World AI Cooperation Organisation (WAICO) at last year’s conference but no countries have formally announced membership.
The conference coincides with a High-Level Meeting on Global AI Governance in Shanghai, where progress on WAICO and implementing the Global AI Governance Initiative are expected to be announced.
Open-source promotion
Beijing is also expected to promote China’s open-source AI models as a low-cost alternative to Western offerings, arguing they can broaden access to the technology.
“The development of AI must never move toward a technological monopoly that walls itself in, but should always be anchored to the fundamental goal of serving humanity,” read a People’s Daily commentary this week.
Nine Turing Award and Nobel laureates, including deep learning pioneers Yoshua Bengio and Richard Sutton, will also attend the Shanghai event, but there is little representation from major US tech firms.
“China has been making inroads with Southeast Asian countries in terms of AI capacity-building, and portrays itself as speaking up for developing countries who are being left behind in the AI race,” an Asian diplomat told Reuters on condition of anonymity.
Other product launches expected at the forum include AI agent smartphones from ZTE-owned Nubia and AI startup StepFun, according to Chinese media.
