WAIC 2026 Chair's Statement: AI development requires balance between innovation and security, international cooperation must be strengthened
Artificial intelligence technologies are advancing at an unprecedented pace, opening new horizons for humanity while simultaneously creating risks that cannot be ignored. When industry leaders, policymakers and scientists come together to formulate common principles, it becomes more than a declaration — it is an attempt to find equilibrium between progress and control, between competition and collaboration. The statement adopted on the first day of WAIC 2026 enshrines an approach that keeps the human being at the centre, with technology serving human interests.
On Friday, the first day of the four‑day event, the chair's statement of the 2026 World Artificial Intelligence Conference and the High‑Level Meeting on Global AI Governance was released in Shanghai. The statement notes that AI is fundamentally transforming economic and social development, and that both the opportunities and challenges associated with AI are growing. It stresses the need to strike the right balance between development and security, and sets out the principles of a human‑centred approach, AI for good, fairness and inclusiveness, and shared governance. It calls for more active international cooperation to ensure that AI truly benefits all of humanity.
The statement calls for the development of an innovation ecosystem led by enterprises, market‑oriented, focused on practical application, research‑based and talent‑driven, and urges the active promotion of the "AI+" model and the use of AI to transform and upgrade traditional industries. It encourages the collaborative development of open‑source ecosystems and emphasises the need to ensure data security and accelerate the establishment of foundational institutions such as data property rights, to guarantee that data is manageable, controllable and traceable, thereby promoting its safe and orderly flow and efficient development and use. On sustainability and security, the statement calls for the promotion of green and low‑carbon AI development, the prevention of misuse and malicious use of AI, and ensuring that AI always remains under human control. On global governance, it advocates genuine multilateral cooperation within the UN framework, calls for inclusive cooperation in AI industrial and logistics chains, stresses the need to implement the UN resolution on AI capacity‑building, and calls for respect for the differences in history, culture and social systems of all countries.
The 2026 World Artificial Intelligence Conference and the High‑Level Meeting on Global AI Governance are being held from Friday to Monday, bringing together officials, business leaders, scientists and researchers from more than 100 countries and international organisations. The adopted statement marks an important step towards building international consensus on AI regulation and ethics. As CCTV+ reports. The principles enshrined in the document are expected to underpin further negotiations and national AI strategies.
