Xi Jinping traveled to Shanghai to attend the opening ceremony of the 2026 World Artificial Intelligence Conference and High-Level Meeting on Global AI Governance, prompting high-level security and traffic controls in the area.
In August 2026, the AI model invocation volume leaderboard at the Tiangang Intelligent Computing exhibition area of the Shanghai World Artificial Intelligence Convention drew attention: domestic models such as DeepSeek were displayed with their names directly, while some mainstream overseas models were replaced with generic labels such as "general reasoning model."
On the same day Xi Jinping attended the opening of the World Artificial Intelligence Conference, the Shanghai and Shenzhen stock markets plummeted across the board, with nearly 200 stocks hitting the daily limit, erasing all gains since August 2025. Technology, semiconductor, and gaming sectors related to AI fell the most.
During the 2026 World Artificial Intelligence Conference in Shanghai, the city suspended the sending of knives, scissors, pliers, hammers and other items in several districts such as Fengxian, Songjiang, and Qingpu.
Xinhua News Agency announced that Xi Jinping will travel to Shanghai this Friday to attend the World Artificial Intelligence Conference, sparking outside speculation about his trip to Shanghai for political networking.
The 2026 World Artificial Intelligence Conference was held in Shanghai, with UN Secretary-General António Guterres, Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet, and representatives from Thailand and other sides in attendance.
Kazakhstan’s AI minister Matiyev went to Washington in June to join the US-led AI alliance, and three weeks later signed in Shanghai, becoming one of the 29 founding member states of China’s “World Artificial Intelligence Cooperation Organization.”