Shanghai, China - Chinese President Xi Jinping on Friday said the artificial intelligence industry should not be dominated by a single country and urged stronger international cooperation on its development.
"AI development should not be a solo performance by a single country, but a symphony of international cooperation," Xi said at the opening of the World Artificial Intelligence Conference (WAIC) in Shanghai on Friday.
"We should jointly oppose overstretching the national security concept in the field of AI or placing one country's security over that of others," Xi added.
His comments were a thinly veiled reference to the US and the European Union, both of which have imposed restrictions on Chinese tech imports over national security concerns.
Chinese AI models are catching up to the most powerful US offerings, while attracting global users with lower costs. How to govern the booming sector has become a key topic of contention.
The WAIC is "the most important annual event for understanding the direction of China's AI industry", Poe Zhao, of analysis publication Hello China Tech, told AFP.
"The United States retains a clear lead in advanced chips, frontier computing infrastructure and the most capital-intensive model development," Zhao said, warning that "China is its closest and most comprehensive competitor."
"We should put in place laws and regulations, technological monitoring, early warning, and emergency response systems, in order to… ensure AI is always under human control," Xi said during his address to the conference.
China's Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning clarified Beijing's main three AI policies in a post to X on Friday.
They included: Providing developing countries with AI training and seminars, developing international AI cooperation centers, and enabling at least 30 countries to use an AI-powered meteorological warning system.