China’s AI vision gives the Global South a seat at the table

The ninth World Artificial Intelligence Conference marked a shift from the technology-focused exhibitions of previous editions to a high-profile international gathering of government officials, world leaders, scientists and entrepreneurs. President Xi Jinping delivered an opening speech to articulate China’s role in governing AI.

While Silicon Valley, Washington and Brussels debate national security, frontier capabilities and corporate profitability, China is pushing AI to generate social good. The newly released open-source model at the conference, Kimi K3, reportedly rivals Anthropic’s Claude Fable 5 model as China bets on a future of fair and inclusive AI.

Advancements in data centres and computing systems highlight the sustained momentum of AI development in China. In addition, the conference featured more than 1,100 companies displaying humanoid robots, autonomous vehicles, AI chips, AI glasses and other applications spanning a wide variety of fields. Huawei showcased the latest Atlas 950 SuperPoD supernode, a technology that links many AI chips into a single computing pool. The Atlas reportedly has 6.7 times more computing power than the Nvidia NVL144.