Chinese President Xi Jinping is actively promoting China's vision for artificial intelligence, particularly through an open-source approach, amid a global race for AI dominance with the United States. During the BRICS summit in New Delhi, Xi announced that China will lead the creation of a BRICS "community" for open-source AI, aiming to support cooperation in developing and applying large language models, alongside seminars and training courses for member countries. He also invited BRICS nations to join the new World AI Cooperation Organization, a group of nearly 30 countries established by Beijing.
This push for an open-source ecosystem is seen as Beijing's strategy to offer a more affordable alternative to US AI technology, contrasting with the closed models favored by companies like OpenAI and Anthropic. State Security Minister Chen Yixin echoed this sentiment, criticizing certain countries for using blacklists and closed ecosystems to disrupt global AI industrial chains. While a joint BRICS declaration called for international cooperation on AI accessibility and safety, it did not explicitly endorse Xi's specific open-source initiative, though China is expected to continue advocating for AI governance at future summits.
Simultaneously, China has expressed willingness to engage in AI talks with the US, despite growing tensions and accusations of systematic technology theft. The Commerce Ministry in Beijing refuted claims from US security agencies that Chinese AI firms have extracted proprietary knowledge from American labs "at an industrial scale." This comes as some Western AI leaders, including Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, have called for a slowdown in AI development, with Amodei highlighting China's potential unwillingness to comply as a major challenge. China's data regulator also plans to develop standards for embodied AI and guide local authorities, as demand for high-quality datasets increases.
