SHANGHAI, July 17 - Chinese President Xi Jinping on Friday cast Beijing as the champion of a new global AI order, using China's premier tech conference to promote open-source technology and challenge U.S. influence over the rules governing the fast-moving sector.

In a speech to the opening ceremony of the World Artificial Intelligence Conference (WAIC) in Shanghai, Xi urged countries to "seize the rare and historic opportunity" of open-source AI, and pledged to help developing nations build AI capabilities, warning against the emergence of "new historical injustices" from unequal access to the technology.

The remarks amounted to Xi's clearest articulation yet of China's ambition to shape global AI governance, framing its open-source models as a global public good and positioning Beijing as an alternative to Washington at a pivotal moment in the race for technological leadership.

Comparing AI's significance to the invention of the steam engine and electricity, Xi outlined a vision in which China shares AI technology and expertise with countries across the Global South, while leading global efforts to create standards governing the emerging technology.

The speech pitched China's AI coalition as a rival to the U.S.-led "Pax Silica" international initiative to secure global AI and critical mineral supply chains, though Xi avoided naming Washington.

His comments came as Chinese open-weight AI models are making rapid gains against proprietary systems from U.S. companies such as OpenAI and Anthropic. Beijing-based startup Moonshot AI on Friday unveiled Kimi K3, which it described as the world's largest open AI model by parameter count, a month after the U.S. government abruptly pulled Anthropic's frontier-class AI models due to security concerns.

Xi also called for AI systems to remain under human control and urged countries to establish early-warning and emergency-response mechanisms to manage AI risks, in his clearest remarks to date on AI safety.

He further urged measures to guard against loss-of-control scenarios, warning of the dangers posed by autonomous AI systems that could evade human oversight and cont...