President Xi Jinping will attend the opening ceremony of the 2026 World Artificial Intelligence Conference (WAIC) in Shanghai and deliver a keynote address, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced on Monday.The Chinese leader’s attendance will mark his first in-person appearance at the annual event since it was launched in 2018, signalling the growing priority Beijing places on AI to drive economic growth, technological competitiveness and global rule-setting.Xi previously sent a congratulatory letter to the inaugural WAIC, while Premier Li Qiang attended the opening ceremonies in both 2024 and 2025.
SRCSouth China Morning Post
LANGEN
LEANCenter-Right
WORDS89
ENT8
MON · 2026-07-13 · 12:00 GMTBRIEF NSR-2026-0713-92657
NSR-2026-0713-92657News Report·EN·Technology
Xi Jinping to attend World AI Conference for first time as China elevates tech push
President Xi Jinping will attend the opening ceremony of the 2026 World Artificial Intelligence Conference (WAIC) in Shanghai and deliver a keynote address. This marks his first in-person appearance at the annual event, which began in 2018.
Howard LiuSouth China Morning PostFiled 2026-07-13 · 12:00 GMTLean · Center-RightRead · 1 min
South China Morning PostFIG 01
Reading time
1min
Word count
89words
Sources cited
1cited
Entities identified
8entities
Quality score
100%
§ 01
Briefing Summary
AI-generatedNEWSAR · AI
President Xi Jinping will attend the opening ceremony of the 2026 World Artificial Intelligence Conference (WAIC) in Shanghai and deliver a keynote address. This marks his first in-person appearance at the annual event, which began in 2018. His attendance signals Beijing's increasing focus on artificial intelligence to foster economic growth, enhance technological competitiveness, and influence global AI governance. Previously, Xi sent a congratulatory letter to the inaugural WAIC, while Premier Li Qiang attended the opening ceremonies in 2024 and 2025. The announcement was made by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Monday.
Confidence 0.85Sources 1Claims 4Entities 8
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Article analysis
Model · rule-basedFraming
Technology
Political Strategy
Tone
Measured
AI-assessed
CalmNeutralAlarmist
Factuality
0.90 / 1.00
Factual
LowHigh
Sources cited
1
Limited
FewMany
§ 03
Key claims
4 extracted01
Premier Li Qiang attended the opening ceremonies of WAIC in 2024 and 2025.
factual
Confidence
1.00
02
Xi Jinping's attendance will mark his first in-person appearance at the WAIC.
factual
Confidence
1.00
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President Xi Jinping will attend the opening ceremony of the 2026 World Artificial Intelligence Conference (WAIC) in Shanghai.
factualMinistry of Foreign Affairs
Confidence
1.00
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Xi Jinping's attendance signals the growing priority Beijing places on AI.
factual
Confidence
0.90
§ 04
Full report
1 min read · 89 words§ 05
Entities
8 identifiedKey playerOppositionContextPositiveNeutralNegative
Organizations1
§ 06
Keywords & salience
8 termsartificial intelligence
1.00
world ai conference
0.90
china tech push
0.80
xi jinping
0.80
technological competitiveness
0.70
economic growth
0.70
global rule-setting
0.60
shanghai
0.50
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Topic connections
Interactive graph Network visualization showing 51 related topics
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