Xi Jinping tells Shanghai's AI summit the technology must be shaped by humanity's common values
Speaking at WAIC 2026 in Shanghai, Xi Jinping framed artificial intelligence as a frontier of shared prosperity and common security, while pointing to intelligent manufacturing as evidence of China's modernisation model.
At the World Artificial Intelligence Conference in Shanghai on 17 July 2026, Chinese President Xi Jinping set out a three-part pitch for how the technology behind chatbots, factory robots and autonomous vehicles should be governed. AI must be shaped by humanity's common values, used as a driver of shared prosperity and common security, and grounded in what state media described as the "shining hallmark" of intelligent manufacturing on Chinese factory floors.
The remarks, delivered to one of the industry's flagship gatherings, frame artificial intelligence less as a race to be won than as a governance question. The framing matters: it positions Beijing as a normative actor, not a bystander, at a moment when export controls on advanced chips, model evaluations and frontier-lab oversight are being thrashed out in Washington, Brussels and Tokyo.
What Xi actually said
According to CGTN's verified account, Xi told delegates that "we must shape the values of AI with humanity's common values," a formulation designed to place Beijing inside, not outside, the conversation on AI safety and ethics. A second message from the same broadcaster carried his line that the technology should be made "a driver for shared prosperity and common security," language that re-uses vocabulary Chinese officials have deployed in other multilateral settings, from climate finance to digital trade.
The third plank was more concrete. Xi said intelligent manufacturing in China was "a shining hallmark of Chinese modernisation," a deliberate visual: robotic assembly lines, machine-vision inspection cells and AI-assisted logistics, presented as the physical evidence that the country's industrial policy is producing results at scale. For an audience of domestic and overseas delegates, the three messages hang together: a normative claim, an offer of partnership, and a record of execution.
The industrial record behind the framing
The claim about manufacturing is not rhetorical filler. China has spent the last decade building what is now the world's largest installed base of industrial robots and a dense supplier network for motors, batteries, sensors and the machine-vision cameras that feed assembly-line AI. State media have repeatedly pointed to factory clusters in the Yangtze River Delta and the Greater Bay Area as the practical testbed for the governance ideas on offer at WAIC.
The conference itself, hosted annually in Shanghai since 2018, has become a shop window for that base. Domestic large-model developers, robotics firms and autonomous-driving groups use the floor to sign memoranda with municipal governments and overseas buyers. Xi's appearance, with its manufacturing framing, signals that the political leadership wants the diplomatic message and the industrial message to travel as one package.
Why the language on "common values" matters
The phrase "humanity's common values" has a specific genealogy in Chinese diplomatic vocabulary. It is the formulation Beijing uses when it wants to claim alignment with the United Nations system and the developing world while leaving room to define what those values are. In the AI context, the line is doing two jobs. It places China alongside the European Union's risk-based approach, the African Union's emerging continental strategy and the UN Secretary-General's high-level advisory body, and it implicitly pushes back against the United States' preferred framing of the technology as a contest with a single frontier.
For Washington and its allies, the practical question is whether the Chinese offer translates into workable rules: red lines on military use, transparency around frontier models, compute thresholds, data provenance. The signals from WAIC suggest Beijing wants to be at the table when those rules are drafted, not on the receiving end of them.
What to watch next
Three things will test whether the Shanghai pitch becomes a negotiating position or a slogan. First, the text of any communique issued at the close of WAIC 2026, and whether it names specific governance commitments. Second, the next round of bilateral AI talks with the European Commission, which has its own risk-based regime under the EU AI Act. Third, the trajectory of chip-export licensing, where any relaxation or tightening will colour how the "common security" half of Xi's formulation reads in practice.
The sources do not yet specify the full text of Xi's address or the conference communique, and live coverage from Western wire services was not in the inputs available to this article. What is on the record, via CGTN, is a coherent attempt to merge normative language, partnership offers and a manufacturing track record into a single message. The reception, in boardrooms and foreign ministries from Brussels to Brasilia, will determine whether the three planks hold together.
Wire provenance
This editorial synthesis draws on the following public wire/social posts:
- https://x.com/cgtnofficial/status/1946437829388939273
- https://x.com/cgtnofficial/status/1946437525182968213
- https://x.com/cgtnofficial/status/1946435702252454117
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Artificial_Intelligence_Conference