Xi Jinping pushes global AI governance and launches WAICO bloc

Xi’s WAIC speech and the launch of WAICO formalize something that has been implicit for a while: we now have competing AI governance blocs. On one side is the US‑aligned “Pax Silica” framework built around export controls, safety commitments, and standards coordination among allies. On the other is a Shanghai‑centered architecture that frames AI as a development tool for the Global South and pushes back against what Beijing calls the overuse of “national security” to justify controls.

For the race to AGI, this raises the geopolitical temperature. China is signaling that it intends not just to catch up technologically but also to shape the rules of the game—who gets access to advanced models, on what terms, and under which values. Xi’s promises of thousands of training slots, AI weather tools, and expanded cooperation with ASEAN, the Arab League, the African Union, and others are a soft‑power play: tie emerging markets into a Chinese ecosystem of models (DeepSeek, Zhipu, Moonshot’s Kimi K3), hardware (Huawei’s Atlas 950 SuperPoD), and governance norms.

The risk is a bifurcated standards world where interoperability and joint safety evaluations become harder just as models approach truly general capabilities. The upside is that having multiple governance centers could create pressure for more transparency and better practices as blocs compete for legitimacy.