WAICO: Understanding China’s Global AI Cooperation Initiative

China proposed the establishment of the World AI Cooperation Organization (WAICO) in July 2025. The initiative was put forward at China’s flagship annual AI event, the World AI Conference, as UN Member States negotiated modalities for the Independent International Scientific Panel on AI and a Global Dialogue on AI Governance. Chinese leaders have reiterated the proposal in public fora several times since. 

While WAICO has attracted interest and speculation among AI policy circles, few official details have been published over the past 10 months and little information is available in English. What is WAICO and what are China’s goals in establishing it?

What is WAICO?

China presented its vision last July for an international organization for AI cooperation with three goals: 

1. “Deepening cooperation on innovation to unleash the AI dividend”, including through China sharing the opportunities brought by its own modernization with other countries;
2. “Promoting inclusive development to bridge the AI divide”, ensuring that all developing countries benefit equally from AI;
3. “Strengthening collaborative governance to ensure AI for good”, aiming to gradually form a broadly agreed global AI governance framework, standards and norms.

The sequencing of these goals is revealing. China’s National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), which is spearheading the implementation of China’s flagship AI Plus initiative, reinforced this prioritization in a policy commentary about global AI cooperation. The commentary linked WAICO primarily to capacity-building and bridging the “global intelligence divide”, rather than coordination on rules and standards. Chinese official messaging has framed Global South countries as the main beneficiaries of such cooperation, while welcoming the participation of all countries who are “sincere and willing in the preparatory work… and in jointly advancing global AI governance and cooperation”. Judging from this vision and existing Chinese initiatives, WAICO will focus on training, joint research, use case sharing, and support with AI model deployment. Some experts think WAICO could extend further into cooperation on data center infrastructure. China intends to base the organization in Shanghai, which also hosts the World AI Conference. 

No further official details about WAICO have been released since the initial announcement in July 2025. However, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) and the NDRC appear to be leading on the elaboration of the organization. Other government stakeholders will likely participate as well. The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) in particular already plays a prominent role in delivering BRICS-China AI initiatives and other digital capacity-building projects. 

Drivers 

WAICO’s stated objectives and focus reflect continuity in China’s approach to international governance, both in general and on AI specifically. First, WAICO fits China’s broader engagement on international governance agendas as its global profile and influence grows. President Xi has rolled out “global initiatives” focused on Development (2021), Security (2022), Civilization (2023), and Governance (2025). However, in contrast with these initiatives, which seek to  articulate Chinese priorities and align others to them, WAICO is intended to be an international organization of member states, with operational capacity and activities. 

Second, WAICO’s proposed focus on development and capacity-building aligns with China’s position in the UN and other intergovernmental forums such as the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation and BRICS. Moreover, WAICO offers a channel for state-to-state capacity-building that is less tied to the human rights-based approach often emphasized in UN settings. In this respect it has parallels to the Belt and Road Initiative.

Third, WAICO builds on and formalizes Chinese attempts in the last two years to raise its profile and shape international AI policy developments. These include: a UN General Assembly resolution on AI capacity-building (which followed a US-led resolution on safe, secure, and trustworthy AI), the AI Capacity-Building Action Plan for Good and for All, the BRICS leaders summit statement on Global Governance of AI, the Global AI Governance Action Plan, and the MIIT-driven International Open Source AI Cooperation Initiative. These initiatives may also reflect the fact that China does not participate in many western-led fora for AI governance discussions, such as the OECD, G7, and International Network of AI Safety Institutes (now rebranded the International Network for Advanced AI Measurement, Evaluation and Science). 

International Reactions 

There has been a limited international response to WAICO so far and no publicly confirmed members. In September 2025, Belarus expressed support for the initiative at a UN Security Council meeting and Kazakh President Tokayev said that Kazakhstan supported China’s proposal to establish WAICO and was “ready to make [its] own contribution to this extremely important endeavor”. In November, a Premier-level joint communiqué between China and Russia contained an equivocal expression of willingness to cooperate on China’s initiative to establish WAICO.

A delay in confirming members is in line with precedent; there was a gap of a year between President Xi proposing the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and its initial members signing a Memorandum of Understanding in 2014. China likely hopes to be able to report progress on WAICO’s establishment in or around July 2026, when the next World AI Conference and the first UN Global Dialogue on AI Governance will take place. Interlocutors expect that there will be sufficient uptake to get WAICO off the ground, but there are challenges. These include:

1. General caution on establishing new multilateral institutions and traditional Asian hesitance towards the institutionalization of cooperative initiatives. For instance, ASEAN was founded in 1967 but only adopted a formal Charter in 2007.
2. Resourcing concerns from potential members. There is no public information on a budget or financing model yet. If members need to dedicate resources to WAICO, will this compete with resourcing for other multilateral and regional institutions? 
3. Heightened geopolitical tensions and sensitivities regarding the strategic dimensions of AI. These may deter western-allied countries from joining and potentially induce caution in countries looking to maintain balance in their relationships with China and the US. An op-ed by India’s former Permanent Representative to the UN illustrates this wariness, cautioning that WAICO could determine the “new global AI order” and “India must be vigilant”.

These challenges could help explain why Beijing supported a non-governmental, multistakeholder approach rather than a multilateral one for the World Data Organization (WDO), which was inaugurated in the capital in March 2026 as a “global platform for cooperation on data development and governance”.

How will WAICO relate to nascent UN AI processes? 

Some observers have questioned whether WAICO’s announcement undermines China’s previous stance that the UN has a central role to play in AI governance. However, China insists that WAICO will “support the role of the UN as the main channel in AI governance, and complement [its] efforts”, and that it “looks forward to the mutual reinforcement between WAICO and the Global Dialogue on AI Governance”. With the US actively rejecting international AI governance initiatives including at the UN, China may have more reason to be seen to be supportive of AI processes there. China might seek to connect WAICO with UN bodies and mechanisms. For instance, it could incorporate cooperation with other relevant international organizations into the articles of agreement or establish a Memorandum of Understanding with a UN body (both of which occurred in the case of AIIB).  

If successful, WAICO could be a vehicle for experimentation to identify and scale cost-effective AI capacity-building interventions and concrete collaborative projects among participating states. It could also be a forum to explore how capacity-building via open-weight models can ensure safety and security. China has a strong open AI model ecosystem, but there have been increasing concerns internationally and domestically about the challenges that open models pose for AI risk management. WAICO could therefore be a venue for fruitful work at the intersection of three priority areas for the UN Global Dialogue on AI Governance: safe, secure and trustworthy AI; capacity building; and open AI models, data and software. 

Conclusion: Implications for Global AI Governance

By establishing WAICO, China does not intend—nor does it have the resources and global buy-in necessary—to dominate global AI governance agendas and rules. Rather, WAICO is more appropriately interpreted as an attempt to selectively balance western (especially US) influence in AI governance. It will likely be a scaled up version of capacity-building work that China was already doing, and there is scope for it to feed into and complement UN processes.