China has proposed a global action plan to govern artificial intelligence, just days after the United States unveiled its own plan to promote US dominance of the rapidly growing field that’s become a key bargaining chip in trade talks between the economic powerhouses.
Chinese Premier Li Qiang unveiled China’s vision for future AI oversight at the World AI Conference (WAIC), an annual gathering in Shanghai of tech titans from more than 40 countries. “Overall, global AI governance is still fragmented. Countries have great differences, particularly in terms of areas such as regulatory concepts, institutional rules,” said Li in his speech on Saturday. “We should strengthen coordination to form a global AI governance framework that has broad consensus as soon as possible.”
Li’s remarks came just days after the Trump administration unveiled its 28-page AI action plan, which aims to remove “bureaucratic red tape” and establish US dominance in the sector. While Li did not directly refer to the US in his speech, he alluded to the ongoing trade tensions between the two superpowers, which include American restrictions on advanced semiconductor exports — a component vital for powering and training AI, which is currently causing a shortage in China.
“Key resources and capabilities are concentrated in a few countries and a few enterprises,” said Li in his speech on Saturday. “If we engage in technological monopoly, controls and restrictions, AI will become an exclusive game for a small number of countries and enterprises. AI chips have become a key bargaining tool between US and China in trade negotiations, which continued this week with a meeting in Stockholm. Before the latest round of talks, both countries appeared to make concessions, with Washington lifting its ban on sales of a key Nvidia AI chip to China, and Beijing suspending its antitrust investigation into American chemical firm DuPont.
Speaking from Scotland on Sunday, Trump said the US is “very close to a deal with China,” but offered no further details. The current deadline for a deal expires on August 12. China has not been shy about promoting its AI ambitions: with more than 5,000 AI companies, and a core AI industry valued at 600 billion yuan ($84 billion) in April 2025, the nation is all-in on its tech rivalry with the US.
This surge is being fueled by enormous government and private sector spending. Between 2013 and 2023, state venture capital firms invested an estimated $209 billion into AI-related businesses, according to research published by the National Bureau of Economic Research, a private think tank based in Massachusetts, and this year alone, public sector spending on AI is expected to top 400 billion yuan ($56 billion).
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