China leads development of beneficial AI, helps shape fairer global governance
By Cong Peiwu
Chinese ambassador to Iran
A new wave of artificial intelligence is sweeping across the globe, fundamentally reshaping the way people live and work while transforming models of social governance. At the 2026 World Artificial Intelligence Conference and the High-Level Meeting on Global AI Governance, President Xi Jinping laid out China’s vision for AI development and global governance in a comprehensive manner, advancing four key proposals: upholding openness and win-win cooperation, strengthening risk awareness, promoting inclusiveness and universality, and calling for collaboration and solidarity. These proposals chart the course for global AI governance. Through concrete action, China is demonstrating the responsibility of a major power while offering a Chinese approach to the inclusive development of artificial intelligence.
Development for people & benefit of humanity
Faced with questions of our time such as, “When machines begin to think, how should humans coexist with them?”, President Xi Jinping stressed that all countries should adhere to a human-centered approach and a positive, beneficial orientation, and join hands to build a fair and rational global governance system for artificial intelligence.
This vision is firmly rooted in China’s own practice. In recent years, China has actively advanced the “AI+” initiative. The scale of the country’s core intelligent economy has surpassed one trillion yuan, while a wide range of smart devices has entered households and contributed to public well-being. “Made in China Smart” has become another hallmark of Chinese modernization.
In smart healthcare, for example, artificial intelligence has made its way from research laboratories to primary healthcare clinics, emerging as a powerful assistant in safeguarding public health. Specialized AI disease agents developed by the country’s leading hospitals are gradually being rolled out to county- and township-level medical institutions nationwide, raising the standard of diagnosis and treatment at the grassroots level.
In smart education, intelligent classroom feedback systems automatically collect multidimensional classroom data, assist teachers with analysis, and offer recommendations to improve teaching methods, thereby effectively enhancing educational quality.
In agriculture, embedded AI decision-making systems provide around-the-clock monitoring and intelligent control across the entire production chain—from breeding and cultivation to processing—injecting strong scientific and technological momentum into rural revitalization.
These examples vividly demonstrate the principle that the benefits of AI development should be shared by the people.
Upholding innovation while ensuring AI remains safe & controllable
China has emerged as one of the world's leading forces in artificial intelligence. It ranks first globally in AI patent applications, accounting for 60% of the world’s total. The country is at the forefront of fields such as deep learning, computer vision and natural language processing, while its overall computing capacity ranks second worldwide.
In the digital sphere, China has achieved breakthroughs in a number of core technologies, and emerging industries—including indigenous operating systems, humanoid robots, smart homes and intelligent terminals—are expanding rapidly. The 15th Five-Year Plan has mapped out the roadmap for AI development, emphasizing the combination of an efficient market and an effective government, while promoting in a coordinated manner the upgrading of traditional industries, the strengthening of emerging sectors and the strategic development of industries of the future.
For instance, AI-powered intelligent manufacturing is boosting industrial productivity, while smart networked systems are optimizing urban traffic management.
China places equal emphasis on development and security. It continues to improve its laws and regulations, policy frameworks, application standards and ethical guidelines to ensure that artificial intelligence remains safe, reliable and controllable.
President Xi Jinping stressed the need to pay close attention to the inherent and derivative risks posed by AI, accelerate the development of regulatory frameworks, technical oversight, risk warning mechanisms and emergency response systems, reinforce safety red lines, prevent abuse and misuse, and ensure that AI always remains under human control. At the same time, China opposes the over-expansion of the concept of national security.
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