AI meets APEC: Injecting new momentum into regional development

Artificial intelligence (AI) is creating new opportunities for economic growth and regional cooperation across the Asia-Pacific. As the region prepares for the 2026 APEC Economic Leaders' Meeting in Shenzhen, south China's Guangdong Province, making AI more accessible, inclusive and beneficial to all has become a key priority.

Under the theme "Building an Asia-Pacific Community to Prosper Together," the 2026 APEC meeting has set openness, innovation and cooperation as its three priorities. Against this backdrop, inclusive development, narrowing the digital divide and promoting open-source technologies are becoming important themes in regional AI cooperation.

China, as a major AI power, has been playing an active role in global AI governance and international cooperation.

In 2023, it proposed the Global AI Governance Initiative, outlining the principle of developing AI for good, respecting the relevant international laws and aligning AI's development with humanity's common values of peace, development, equity, justice, democracy and freedom, while developing open, fair and efficient governing mechanisms. Subsequent efforts include the AI Capacity-Building Action Plan for Good and for All, the Global AI Governance Action Plan and the AI+ International Cooperation Initiative, reflecting China's push to build broader international consensus and make AI a technology that benefits people worldwide.

In July 2026, the APEC Digital and AI Ministerial Meeting adopted a statement known as the Chengdu Statement, aiming to jointly promote digital and AI technologies to empower the Asia-Pacific community. The statement provides an action framework for deepening cooperation in the region in the coming years.

Open-source AI expanding access

Practical cooperation is already taking shape, with open-source AI models offering developing economies more affordable tools to build their own AI capabilities.

In recent years, Chinese-developed open models have gained growing international adoption. Malaysia has incorporated DeepSeek into its national-scale sovereign AI infrastructure, while Singapore's AI Singapore program has used Alibaba's Qwen as the foundation to build its latest region model for Southeast Asian languages.

According to the AI platform Hugging Face's State of Open Source on Hugging Face: Spring 2026 report, Chinese-developed open-source models account for 41% of global downloads.

Empowering public services

Such models are been increasingly applied in public service sectors.

"China's AI-powered MAZU weather early-warning system has been deployed in eight countries, including Pakistan, Ethiopia, Sri Lanka and Mongolia, while its cloud-based services have been tested in more than 40 countries," reported Pakistan Today.

Since 2024, meteorological agencies in more than 40 countries have accessed MAZU through the cloud.

With the could-based system, information can be accessed in any city or region across the country at any time, said Sohail Babar Cheema, an expert at the Pakistan Meteorological Department.

Warda Aslam, AI expert and professor at the Faculty of Computing & AI at Air University, Islamabad, said such cooperation represents a practical example of how AI can serve as an international public good.

By sharing early-warning technologies with developing countries, Aslam said, China is helping bridge the technological gap and enabling nations to improve disaster preparedness, emergency response and long-term climate adaptation.

In Thailand, AI-powered teaching systems are being introduced in schools to support Chinese-language education. Using large language models, the systems provide pronunciation correction and personalized exercises, helping address teacher shortages and the difficulty of offering individual guidance in large classrooms.

Agriculture is another area where AI is helping translate technology into practical benefits. China's Landy AI agricultural model has been applied in Southeast Asian markets, such as Laos and Cambodia. By combining information on soil conditions, farmland location and weather, the system can assess which crops are suitable for a particular plot and generate reports to help farmers make planting decisions.

As the host of APEC 2026, China is placing AI and the digital economy among the core priorities for regional discussion. The meeting will be held on November 18 and 19, bringing together leaders to discuss the region's future development.