BEIJING: China’s vision to turn artificial intelligence from an expensive frontier technology into a resource for affordable, widely accessible applications will bring huge benefits to more countries, businesses and ordinary people worldwide, said leading industry experts and company executives.
They made the comments on Tuesday after President Xi Jinping, in his keynote speech on Friday at the 2026 World AI Conference and High-Level Meeting on Global AI Governance in Shanghai, said that AI should be developed “for the positive, for good and for humanity”.
“AI development should not be a solo performance by a single country, but a symphony of international cooperation,” Xi said.
He called for coordinated advances in the transformation and upgrade of traditional industries, the cultivation and growth of emerging industries, and forward-looking planning for future industries, so that all sectors and businesses can benefit from AI.
Long Yongtu, China’s former chief negotiator for its accession to the World Trade Organization, said the rise of AI has become another turning point in the country’s economic development.
He said that China’s entry into the WTO in 2001 unleashed the vitality of millions of market participants after restrictions on foreign trade rights were relaxed, helping the country grow into the world’s largest trader in goods and allowing ordinary people to increase their income through international commerce.
“Now, entering the age of AI heralds a new era of opening-up. AI is triggering a similarly profound transformation by reshaping production relationships, corporate structures and the cost of starting a business in the country,” Long said.
According to the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, China has embraced AI with open arms, with the value of its core AI industries exceeding 1.2 trillion yuan ($177 billion) last year, maintaining annual growth of more than 20 percent for several consecutive years.
Furthermore, the country is seeking to turn AI into real-world applications and a driver of economic growth.
In the first half of this year, the industrial output of AI-related sectors, including integrated circuit manufacturing and in-vehicle intelligent equipment manufacturing, grew more than 30 percent.
Long predicted that more individuals and small, specialized companies that use AI to perform work that previously required much larger organizations will emerge to become new drivers of the economy. –The Daily Mail-China Daily news exchange item
