Xi Jinping Volunteers China to Lead AI Development Across the Developing World
At the BRICS summit in New Delhi, President Xi Jinping proposed an open-source AI community, shared cloud infrastructure, and engineer-training programmes for member nations.
Key points
- China's President Xi Jinping announced plans to build a BRICS open-source AI community at the bloc's 18th summit in New Delhi on 12 September 2026.
- Xi proposed a shared cloud platform, an engineer-training alliance, and a youth science exchange for the ten-member group.
- BRICS, founded in 2009 with five members, now includes Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, Egypt, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Iran and the United Arab Emirates.
- Xi made no mention of AI safety, even as a researcher with experience at both OpenAI and Anthropic warned this week that many inside the industry fear AI could pose an existential risk by 2030.
China wants to become the go-to provider of AI tools and training for the developing world. President Xi Jinping made that case on Sunday at the 18th BRICS summit in New Delhi, as first reported by CNBC Tech.
Xi outlined five concrete moves. China would pioneer a BRICS AI open-source community, meaning a shared online space where member countries can build and use AI tools without paying licensing fees to Western tech firms. It would support cooperation on large language models, the technology behind AI chatbots like ChatGPT, hold AI seminars and training courses, build an open AI ecosystem, and establish a shared digital cloud platform so member countries can pool computing power. He also proposed a BRICS engineer cultivation alliance and a youth exchange programme focused on science and technology.
What is BRICS and why does this matter?
BRICS is a bloc of major developing and emerging economies, set up in 2009 as a counterweight to Western-dominated institutions like the G7. It started with Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, then expanded to add Egypt, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Iran and the United Arab Emirates.
These countries hold a huge share of the world's population but have historically depended on American and European companies for advanced software and cloud services. Xi's proposals, if they move from statement to working products, would shift some of that dependency toward Beijing. Two days after the summit, ECB president Christine Lagarde made a related argument from the other direction: we reported her warning that trade partners could weaponise AI access if Europe doesn't build its own.
The pitch is real infrastructure: shared cloud hosting, free-to-use AI models, and hands-on engineer training for people who currently have no affordable path to the latest tools. For a nurse in Ethiopia or a teacher in Indonesia, that could eventually mean AI translation or medical-record software built closer to home and priced accordingly.
What about the safety debate happening at the same time?
Xi didn't address it. A researcher with experience at both OpenAI and Anthropic said publicly this week that many people inside the industry believe AI could threaten human survival by the end of this decade. It's a claim disputed by others in the field, but it's re-energised calls for international safety rules.
Ten nations agreeing to share AI models and cloud infrastructure, with no joint safety framework announced, is worth watching closely. Open-source AI is genuinely useful for poorer countries; it also makes oversight harder. Our earlier reporting on US-China tensions asked whether misbehaving AI agents might finally push both sides to talk: Xi's summit statement suggests Beijing would rather lead than negotiate.
These are still statements, not signed agreements. The gap between a summit announcement and working code is wide, and it's swallowed plenty of BRICS tech initiatives before.
