Twenty-nine countries signed an agreement creating WAICO as an independent intergovernmental organization, while China paired the launch with capacity-building offers that are not yet confirmed as WAICO programs.
WAICO now has founding signatures and a headquarters. It does not yet have a publicly visible operating model, making the institution a concrete diplomatic gain for China but its practical authority an open question.
Representatives of 29 countries signed the founding agreement in Shanghai on July 16. Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi signed for China, and the agreement describes WAICO as an independent intergovernmental international organization based in the city, according to the Chinese government's announcement. A parallel state news account gives the same description.
The founding countries are Algeria, Belarus, Brazil, Cambodia, Cameroon, China, Congo, Cuba, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Kyrgyzstan, Laos, Lesotho, Malaysia, Mozambique, Myanmar, Nicaragua, Oman, Pakistan, Russia, Senegal, Serbia, South Africa, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Venezuela and Zambia, according to Indonesia's official account. An independent tally counts 12 Asian and 10 African members. It also says China proposed the organization at the 2025 conference but no country had formally announced membership before this signing.
The United States, the European Union and its member states, the United Kingdom, Japan and South Korea are not among the founders, as a membership comparison notes. That report, relaying researchers' analysis, says WAICO's proposed design differs from other global AI initiatives through membership open to any sovereign state, no political-regime test and an agenda centered on development and the capability divide. The available founding summaries, however, do not set out an admissions procedure.
UN Secretary-General António Guterres attended the signing, but the sources offer different characterizations of what that means. Indonesia's government called his presence a sign of UN support and described WAICO as a nonprofit organization operating under a UN framework. China's foreign ministry says the organization follows the purposes of the UN Charter and will help align development strategies, governance rules and technical standards while China advances AI governance “under the UN framework.”
Neither statement identifies WAICO as a UN agency or describes UN control, funding or formal oversight. A separate account instead characterizes the body as an effort to shape technology governance outside the UN system. Until the full agreement or an authoritative institutional explanation is public, “independent intergovernmental organization” is the clearest supported status; the formal connection to UN processes remains unsettled.
President Xi Jinping coupled the launch with tangible offers to developing countries. China will provide 5,000 places in AI training and seminar programs over five years, develop application-cooperation centers with ASEAN, the League of Arab States, the African Union, CELAC, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and BRICS, and enable 30 countries to use its MAZU meteorological warning system, the foreign ministry said in a briefing on Xi's package.
Those are Chinese commitments. The available summary of the founding agreement does not say WAICO will fund, govern or deliver them. That distinction limits the strongest version of the claim that WAICO already combines rulemaking with Chinese infrastructure: the launch places the offers in the same diplomatic frame, but the operating link has not been shown.
Two founding governments explained their participation in development terms. Pakistan called WAICO a platform for cooperation, capacity building and bridging the digital divide; Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Mohammad Ishaq Dar also called for equitable access to AI and emerging technologies, according to Pakistan's account of his visit. Indonesia said participation could strengthen its domestic AI governance and cross-border collaboration, while projecting that the signing would support its digital economy and help accelerate investment toward higher-value sectors. Those are government expectations, not evidence of investment already committed.
George Chen, a partner and digital-practice chair at consultancy The Asia Group, called WAICO China's answer to the U.S.-led Pax Silica framework in an assessment from the Shanghai conference. Pax Silica includes Japan, the UK, Australia, the Philippines, Israel and India and focuses on cooperation over AI-related supply chains.
The comparison shows the geopolitical backdrop, not two equivalent institutions. WAICO's declared remit is international cooperation and AI governance; Pax Silica is described here as a supply-chain framework. India, moreover, is in the U.S.-led framework but not among WAICO's founders. The same conference account says China and the United States agreed in May to hold a dialogue on AI development and governance, a reminder that competing initiatives do not preclude direct engagement.
China's offer also has a commercial foundation. The country's state planner pledged to promote open-source AI globally as a lower-cost alternative to Western products, while some Western companies have adopted Chinese models that were cheaper, increasingly capable or easier to run on their own infrastructure, according to a report on China's AI diplomacy. An expanded market for those models could increase Chinese influence over deployment practices and technical choices. Nothing in the founding material shows that WAICO members must buy Chinese technology or adopt Chinese standards, however.
Xi argued that AI should not be dominated by one country and criticized what he called the “overstretching” of national-security restrictions. That message responds in part to U.S. controls that have blocked China from some advanced technology. It also presents China as a capacity partner for developing economies.
China has real assets behind that pitch. It has an advantage in the electricity available to power large data centers and dominates production of critical rare-earth minerals used in chips, according to an analysis of its infrastructure position. Its large domestic market supplies scale, and Chinese companies have released increasingly powerful and less expensive models.
The constraints are equally material. The United States still leads in private investment, computing capacity and the number of top-tier models. U.S. restrictions impede Chinese access to the computing needed for the largest models, while China remains dependent on foreign technology and machinery in difficult parts of semiconductor production, according to a comparative assessment.
China's external case for open and accessible AI also sits beside domestic controls. The same assessment says public AI services in China must follow “fundamental socialist values” and cannot generate content that challenges state power or official positions on sensitive subjects. That does not establish how WAICO will govern speech or safety, but it makes the content of any shared standards more important than the language of openness alone.
One analysis of the broader strategy compares China's AI diplomacy with its infrastructure outreach: models, digital systems, skills and standards would take the place of ports and railways. That is an interpretation of Beijing's direction, not a term in the WAICO agreement.
China says it will work with the founders to start WAICO's operations soon. The decisive evidence will be procedural: the full agreement, any ratification or entry-into-force requirements, voting rights, budget contributions, leadership selection, membership rules, and the process for proposing, adopting and auditing standards.
It also remains unknown whether WAICO will administer China's capacity programs, require or favor particular vendors, or establish a formal channel into UN-led work. Those details will show whether the new body becomes a negotiating forum, a development organization, a standards-setting institution or primarily a diplomatic coalition.
The signing redistributes representation by giving 29 governments a new forum centered on development and access. It does not yet reveal who will control that forum or what its decisions can do.
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