China launches Shanghai-based AI body and 5,000 training slots for Global South

Xi announced 5,000 AI training places over five years as 29 nations founded a new cooperation organization headquartered in Shanghai.

At the World AI Conference in Shanghai, Xi Jinping announced 5,000 AI training slots for Global South countries over the next five years. The pledge came alongside the formal establishment of the World Artificial Intelligence Cooperation Organization, or WIKO, founded by 29 nations and headquartered in Shanghai. The body was first proposed in 2025 and formed a day before the training announcement.

Founding members include Russia, Brazil, South Africa, Pakistan, and Indonesia. No Western country joined. Xi called for AI to remain under human control and criticized broad national security justifications in AI policy. He put the value of China's 'Smart Economy' at over one trillion renminbi, roughly $140 billion, a figure attributed to him.

If the training slots materialize, the abundance angle is capacity-building: AI skills and institutional access spreading to countries that have largely been on the receiving end of tools built elsewhere. Shared training and a coordinating body could lower the barrier to developing and deploying AI outside the handful of countries that currently dominate it, which touches both knowledge and the infrastructure of global connection.

The caveats are real. The characterization of this as a 'parallel AI order' is the outlet's framing, not a stated goal. Training slots are a commitment, not delivered programs, and a new intergovernmental organization's actual output is unknown. Whether WIKO becomes a genuine capacity-sharing channel or mainly a geopolitical signal will only be clear over the coming years.

Source: The Decoder