Executive Summary
On July 16th, during the week of the World Artificial Intelligence Conference, twenty-nine countries signed an agreement to establish the World Artificial Intelligence Cooperation Organization (WAICO), the world’s first “intergovernmental international organization on AI” formed to address the growing AI divide amongst underdeveloped and developed countries.
July 31st marked the deadline for additional states to sign on as founding members, with Western democracies absent from signing on to the organization. Officials pledged to use resources to cooperate with various regional organizations in fostering interoperability in AI governance.
Key Points
- Member states include China, Russia, Brazil, Indonesia, Pakistan, South Africa, Cuba, Venezuela, Belarus, Ethiopia, Malaysia, Oman, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Laos, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and others.
- UN Secretary-General Guterres attended the proceedings.
- US, EU member states, the UK, Japan, South Korea, and India are not participating.
- Headquarters to be based in Shanghai, with President Xi Jinping pledging to provide 5,000 training spots for developing countries over the next five years
Analysis
China first proposed the formation of the organization at last year’s World Artificial Intelligence Conference, urging the necessity in shaping the legislation and global cooperation needed to address the challenges humanity faces in the era of AI. Seeking to differ from other organizational bodies, WAICO membership is open to any sovereign state, requires no values or regime-type test for entry, and has an agenda organized around development and the global capability divide. This highlights a shift in traditional Western institutions influencing global discourse, with an alternative structure seeking to have non-Western countries gain a role in shaping their development in this era of AI, which is typically constrained by economic and political prerequisites.
Its mandate covers capacity-building, governance rules and technical standards, interoperability, open-source ecosystems, and coordination with the UN Charter and its processes. The organization measures its progress in its ability to open up approximately 5,000 AI training and seminar slots for developing countries over five years, joint AI application cooperation centres with their various regional bodies such as ASEAN, the Arab League, and the African Union, and deployment of China’s MAZU meteorological early-warning system to 30 countries. Utilizing this form of “AI diplomacy”, China is utilizing the transfer and promise of access to these emerging technologies to strengthen its alliances and build influence in the space.
This move differs from the US-led Pax Silica, an initiative built for advanced economies to secure and strengthen global supply chains built for acquiring components, such as semiconductors, necessary to advance in AI research while seeking to become less reliant on single states controlling these critical supply chains. With WAICO headquarters situated in Shanghai, China underlines its interest in shaping AI norms and practices as a global superpower in AI.
Policy Implications
- The absence of US and Western democracies is defensible on the question of supporting an institution whose funding and overall control is undetermined.
- Emerging economies are given the ability to strengthen their agency and bargaining ability through participation in various frameworks.
- Western leadership in the AI space is called to question with initiatives such as Pax Silica leaving out some countries key to the AI race, such as those rich in critical minerals, in shaping global discourse on both AI innovation and participating in the global supply chain.
- Organizations engaged globally are now faced with three converging bodies with the policies laid out in the EU’s AI Act, the AI Action Plan and Joint Statement on AI Opportunity adopted by most Pax Silica states, and WAICO member states that are not obliged to follow any of those statutes.