Attendees at the 2026 World Artificial Intelligence Conference (WAIC) and High-level Meeting on Global AI Governance have expressed hope to strengthen AI cooperation with China, so that technology can better support the development of all countries.
The four-day event concluded in Shanghai on Monday. Themed "AI Partnership for a Brighter Future," the event featured six sections: Conferences and Forums, Exhibitions and Showcases, Awards and Competitions, Application Experiences, Innovation Incubation, and Talent Attraction.
During his keynote speech at the opening ceremony of the event on Friday, Chinese President Xi Jinping called for enhancing alignment and coordination on AI development strategies, governance rules and technical standards, so as to form a consensus-based global governance framework at an early date to make this frontier technology better benefit humanity.
"An international meeting like this is really important. Artificial intelligence is a great opportunity, but it's important that all nations in the world cooperate to try to regulate. I fully agree with His Excellency the President Xi Jinping," said Mario Nobile, Director General of Agency for Digital Italy.
China's open-source large AI models have been downloaded more than 10 billion times in total, continuing to create new and broader opportunities for global cooperation in AI innovation. "As Lesotho, we are just beginning to implement, I mean to develop. We are mostly consumers, but we are now developing. The open source softwares and applications that we find online are key. We are excited about that and I think that's how China is developing the world and that's how China is helping the countries," said Nthati Moorosi, Minister of Information, Communications, Science, Technology and Innovation for the Kingdom of Lesotho.
Exhibitors also hailed the event's high standard. This year, the exhibition area exceeded 100,000 square meters for the first time, with over 1,100 enterprises participating. Exhibitors displayed 4,486 products and technologies, with 351 products making their global debuts.
"Really good examples for each layer, very deep products for each layer. And we are very impressed with what we see. We are at the bleeding edge of what's being done in terms of artificial intelligence worldwide. We rarely see such level elsewhere. Everything is really top notch and we are very, very impressed," said a Moroccan exhibitor.
The event featured nearly 160 forums, launched its own academic conference for the first time, hosted a series of branded competitions, and organized more than 180 start-up projects from home and abroad for roadshows and exhibitions.
It also received 177 important global purchasing delegations, with an estimated intended purchase worth about 20.36 billion yuan (about 3.01 billion U.S. dollars), a year-on-year increase of about 25 percent.
Attendees speak highly of AI conference, expect cooperation with China
