WAIC 2026 Highlights Global Cooperation on AI Development, Governance

Closer global cooperation on artificial intelligence development and governance was proposed at the 2026 World Artificial Intelligence Conference (WAIC 2026) that concluded in Shanghai on Monday. It was something that was also practiced on site during the four-day event.

"As a Chinese saying goes, a single string can't make music, nor can a single tree form a forest," President Xi Jinping said at the opening ceremony of the conference. "The development of artificial intelligence should not be a solo performance by one single country, but a symphony forged through global cooperation."

During the past four days, participants from more than 100 countries and regions came to the World Expo Center and World Expo Exhibition Hall, joining a crowd of exhibitors ranging from domestic giants such as Baidu, Alibaba and Tencent, and local emerging stars like MiniMax and StepFun, to traditional foreign conglomerates, including Siemens, Zeiss, Schneider Electric and ABB Robotics.

"The WAIC stands as a highly influential global platform for innovation and exchange," said Patricia Xia, managing partner of EY China Central.

"It brings together stakeholders from all sectors at home and abroad to share cutting-edge practices and jointly discuss the development of AI, building an efficient channel to match resources and facilitate the application of intelligent technologies in the real economy."

"The conference has promoted the sharing of technological resources and lowered barriers to the adoption of intelligent technologies. This enables market entities at all stages of development to participate on an equal footing and share the dividends of digital and intelligent growth," Xia added.

During WAIC 2026, German industry giant Siemens announced the launch of the 2026 Xcelerator Open Competition, inviting engineers from China and beyond to jointly explore how to improve automation in the scenarios of AI-powered manufacturing site.

At the same time, Siemens unveiled its latest engineering agent named Eigen in a China debut. As an AI agent tailored for industrial automation, Eigen marks a paradigm shift of AI in industrial scenarios from an auxiliary tool to an independent executor of engineering tasks.

The agent won the 2026 WAIC SAIL award, the top honor for a product at the WAIC for its superior, applicative, innovative and leading functions.

Xiao Song, chairman and CEO of Siemens China, said industrial AI can't be developed by a single enterprise working behind closed doors but needs further opening of industrial scenarios and smoother data circulation among enterprises to jointly create, share and reap the dividends of the Industrial AI era.

"Openness is not an optional extra but a prerequisite for the widespread adoption of industrial AI," Xiao observed.

"At present, some enterprises have begun to accelerate the verification and optimization of relevant technologies in real industrial environments by opening up application scenarios and launching collaborative pilot programs. Siemens is also proactively opening multiple factory scenarios in China to its ecosystem partners to carry out application pilots centered on embodied intelligence."