On a humid afternoon in Shanghai last week, delegates from 29 countries lined up for a photograph that will likely outlast most of the speeches that preceded it. Behind them sat a modest folder of paperwork: the founding charter of the World Artificial Intelligence Cooperation Organization, or WAICO, a new body meant to give the developing world a seat at a table that has, so far, been dominated by a handful of very rich, very powerful labs.
The signing took place on the sidelines of the World Artificial Intelligence Conference, and it was quick, almost businesslike — a stark contrast to the geopolitical weight it carries. China hosted. Russia signed. Nearly every founding member of the BRICS bloc put pen to paper. Pakistan, represented by Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar, joined as a founding member — its clearest statement yet that artificial intelligence has become as central to its foreign policy as trade corridors and energy pipelines once were.
Conspicuously absent from that list: India.
WAICO's stated purpose reads almost gently for something signed by so many strategically minded governments: build guardrails, set shared standards, and help countries that have largely been AI consumers — buying chips, licensing models, renting cloud compute — start acting like AI participants instead. Officials describe it as a vehicle for the Global South, a phrase that shows up again and again in the founding statements, promising to narrow the gap between nations that build frontier models and nations that simply live with the consequences of them.
Pakistan's accession will serve the long-term interests of the country and its people. As a responsible major power, China is ready to work with like-minded partners to strengthen international cooperation on artificial intelligence. — Wang Yi, Chinese Foreign Minister, speaking after the signing
A Partnership Beyond Roads and Power Plants
For Pakistan specifically, the trip to Shanghai was about more than a signature. Dar sat down separately with Wang Yi to talk through what officials on both sides are now calling an expansion of the China–Pakistan relationship into territory the two countries have rarely discussed formally: artificial intelligence and the digital economy, layered on top of the infrastructure and energy projects that have defined the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor for more than a decade. Both governments used the same phrase afterward — CPEC 2.0 — suggesting the next chapter of that corridor will carry as much data as it does cargo.
It's a notable pivot for a country that, until recently, treated AI mostly as a domestic policy question. Islamabad has already committed roughly a billion dollars toward building out its own compute infrastructure and research base by 2030. Shanghai marked the moment that ambition went international — and specifically, went toward Beijing.
Two Blocs, One Technology
WAICO did not emerge in a vacuum. Its announcement followed the launch of a rival, Washington-aligned coalition — a 24-member group sometimes referred to as Pax Silica — built explicitly to counterbalance China's growing influence over AI governance. India sits inside that camp rather than WAICO's, a choice that says as much about New Delhi's relationship with Beijing as it does about AI policy itself.
WAICO
Led from Shanghai. Founding members include China, Russia, and Pakistan. Frames itself as a Global South initiative focused on equitable access and closing the AI divide.
Pax Silica
Twenty-four members, aligned with Washington. Includes India. Positioned as a counterweight to Beijing's expanding footprint in AI standard-setting.
Both organizations describe their mission in near-identical terms: governance, safety standards, and broader access to a technology that is reshaping economies faster than most institutions can regulate it. What differs is who gets to write the rules, and whose interests those rules end up protecting.
An Unlikely Coincidence in Timing
The signing ceremony landed in the same week that Chinese startup Moonshot AI unveiled Kimi K3 — by most measures the largest open-weight AI model ever released, with its full parameters set to become freely downloadable within days. The timing was not lost on delegates in Shanghai. A model built to be given away for free, launched days after a coalition built around the idea of shared access — the message, intended or not, was hard to miss.
Whether WAICO ends up as a genuine counterweight in global AI governance or a largely symbolic bloc will depend on what it actually builds in the coming years — shared compute access, joint research, real standards — rather than what it signed on a summer afternoon in Shanghai. For now, it exists mainly as a statement of intent, signed by 29 governments who agree, at least on paper, that the rules of artificial intelligence should not be written by only one or two countries.
Questions & Answers
The World Artificial Intelligence Cooperation Organization is a new multilateral body, founded on July 16, 2026 in Shanghai, meant to coordinate AI governance, safety standards, and access to the technology among its member states — with a stated focus on the Global South.
Twenty-nine countries signed the founding agreement, including China, Russia, and Pakistan. Every founding BRICS member joined except India.
India instead sits inside Pax Silica, the rival 24-member, Washington-aligned coalition formed to counterbalance China's growing role in AI governance — a reflection of New Delhi's broader strategic alignment rather than a rejection of AI cooperation itself.
Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar signed on Pakistan's behalf as a founding member, and separately met China's Foreign Minister Wang Yi to expand cooperation on AI and the digital economy — an extension of the two countries' relationship beyond the traditional infrastructure and energy focus of CPEC.
Both groups say they want to build guardrails and shared standards for AI. The difference is largely geopolitical: WAICO is led from Shanghai and framed around Global South access, while Pax Silica is a Washington-aligned coalition built explicitly to counter Beijing's influence over AI rulemaking.
Not immediately. So far it is a statement of intent signed by 29 governments. Its real significance will depend on whether it produces concrete outcomes — shared compute access, joint research, enforceable standards — rather than just declarations.
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