WAICO: 29 Countries Sign Shanghai Charter Establishing China-Led AI Governance Body
The World AI Cooperation Organization formally launched in Shanghai with a Chair's Statement from the High-Level Meeting on Global AI Governance calling for a new international paradigm.
Summary
This text, hosted by China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, reports on the 2026 World Artificial Intelligence Conference and High-Level Meeting on Global AI Governance, held in Shanghai from 17 to 20 July with a partnership-focused theme. It states that President Xi Jinping opened the conference and gave the keynote address, that leaders from Kazakhstan, Cambodia and Thailand attended along with UN Secretary-General António Guterres, and that officials, business figures and scholars from over 100 countries and international bodies took part.
The document says the conference treated AI as a new subject in global governance needing international coordination, and called for weighing growth against safety, innovation against oversight, and national interests against shared global welfare. It sets out four principles, centered on people, beneficial AI, fairness with inclusion, and joint governance. It also urged action on uneven resources and power so that Global South countries can benefit equally.
Fifteen numbered points follow. They cover innovation and talent, AI use across industries, open-source ecosystems, data governance, energy and sustainability, employment and workers' rights, security risks, safeguards for frontier models, boundaries and tracing for AI agents, and preventing misuse by terrorists and criminal groups. Others back a central UN role, including its Global Dialogue and Scientific Panel on AI, and call for international trade rules, capacity-building for developing countries, mutual recognition of standards and respect for cultural diversity.
At the conference, an agreement founding WAICO, the World Artificial Intelligence Cooperation Organization, was signed in Shanghai. It is described as the first intergovernmental international organization on AI, headquartered in Shanghai, aimed at helping Global South countries close the AI divide. Its stated principles include the UN Charter, sovereignty, equality and multilateralism, and it is to be open to every country.