China, Pakistan join hands to forge a shared future in AI era

From July 26 to 28, 2025, China successfully held the World Artificial Intelligence Conference (WAIC) and High-Level Meeting on Global AI Governance in Shanghai. Chinese Premier Li Qiang attended the opening ceremony and delivered an important speech.

The conference released the Global AI Governance Action Plan, which outlines 13 concrete and actionable measures aimed at promoting AI development and application while ensuring safety, security, and controllability. The Plan emphasizes respect for national sovereignty, fairness, and inclusiveness, and calls for international cooperation and collaborative governance in AI.

As the core driver of a new wave of scientific and technological revolution and industrial transformation, AI is profoundly reshaping the global economic landscape and social structures. While AI presents unprecedented opportunities for development, it also brings tremendous risks and challenges.

The Chinese government has always attached great importance to the healthy development and governance of AI. As early as 2023, President Xi Jinping of China proposed the Global AI Governance Initiative, charting a blueprint and providing guidance for global AI governance.

The release of the Action Plan in Shanghai marks another significant contribution by China to global AI governance, establishing a comprehensive governance framework that spans philosophy, institutional mechanisms, and practical pathways. It not only addresses the current fragmentation in global AI governance but also offers China’s wisdom in shaping a new paradigm for governance in the AI era.

The six fundamental principles outlined in the Action Plan namely “AI for good and in service of humanity, respect for national sovereignty, aligning with development goals, ensuring safety and controllability, upholding fairness and inclusiveness, and fostering open cooperation” reflect a fundamental shift from a technology-centric to a development-centric approach which aims at bridging the digital divide and fostering inclusive development, and aligns closely with the core aspirations of developing countries.

I’m happy to note that our ironclad friend Pakistan has recently unveiled its National AI Policy 2025, which demonstrates remarkable consistency with China’s Action Plan both in philosophy and practice, reflecting not only global trends in AI development but also the shared aspirations of developing countries in the digital age.

Pakistan’s AI policy is built on six pillars: fostering an innovation ecosystem, talent development, security governance, industrial transformation, infrastructure upgrading, and international cooperation, with a view to achieving “digital sovereignty.”

In terms of governance philosophy, Pakistan emphasizes ethical frameworks, data sovereignty, and transparent governance, resonating with China’s principle of “safety and controllability.” In infrastructure development, Pakistan plans to establish high-performance computing clusters and large language models, complementing the Chinese Action Plan’s call to “improve digital infrastructure layout and promote a unified computing power standard system.”

In talent cultivation, China’s proposal to strengthen international cooperation on AI capacity-building provides strong support for Pakistan’s strategy to nurture AI professionals. It is particularly noteworthy that Pakistan focuses on applying AI in agriculture, healthcare, and climate resilience that highlight the shared people-centered development philosophy of both countries. Currently, China-Pakistan cooperation in AI has already yielded positive outcomes.

The China-Pakistan AI Smart Agriculture Laboratory is leveraging AI technologies to help farmers in Faisalabad monitor crops and improve yields, while Chinese tech giant Huawei is assisting Pakistan in training 200,000 IT professionals, laying a solid foundation for bilateral AI collaboration.

The Joint Statement between China and Pakistan specifically expresses our commitment to enhance cooperation on information technology and promote policy and talent exchanges in emerging areas such as artificial intelligence, big data and communication technology. Looking ahead, China and Pakistan enjoy a bright prospect on AI cooperation. We stand ready to work with Pakistan to implement the consensus reached by our leaders.

First is to strengthen policy coordination and standards alignment, and jointly explore AI governance models suited to each condition. Second is to advance technological research cooperation, particularly in applying AI to livelihood sectors such as agriculture, healthcare, and education. Third is to promote talent exchanges and capacity-building to cultivate professionals well-equipped for the intelligent era. Fourth is to deepen cooperation on data security and ethical governance, to ensure that AI development always progresses in the right direction.

Moving forward, China plans to establish a World AI Cooperation Organization in further unleashing the dividends, bridging the AI divide, and ensuring AI for good, contributing wisdom and strength to a new international AI governance system.

I am confident that, through the joint efforts of both sides, China-Pakistan AI cooperation will yield more fruitful outcomes, becoming a New Testament of building the upgraded version of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), particularly on the “Innovation Corridor.”

As all-weather strategic cooperative partners, China and Pakistan will continue to uphold openness, inclusiveness, and mutual benefits, jointly steering AI toward an open, inclusive, equitable, and beneficial future. This will not only create a better digital life for the people of both countries, but also contribute the wisdom and solutions of developing countries to global AI governance.

Let us take AI cooperation as a new starting point, deepen innovation collaboration, share development opportunities, and compose a new chapter of China-Pakistan friendship to build a Community with a Shared Future for mankind. Together, we will generate more positive momentum into global peace and development and usher in a brighter future in the AI era.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2025