Titled "Cementing the Foundation for BRICS Cooperation and Bolstering the Strength of the Global South," delivered by Xi Jinping at Session II of the 18th BRICS Summit in New Delhi on September 13, 2026, and published in English by the PRC Ministry of Foreign Affairs. It is a national statement by one head of state, not a joint declaration, and binds no other BRICS member.
The AI content occupies two separate passages doing different work: one addressed to multilateral rule-making, the other to building a bloc-level industrial ecosystem.
Global AI governance
In the paragraph on security governance and global challenges — alongside climate governance and traditional and nontraditional security threats — the statement says Global South countries "should take a people-centered approach, develop AI for the positive and for good, and work faster to evolve a consensus-based global AI governance framework, so that new technologies can light the way toward shared prosperity."
The phrase "consensus-based global governance framework" repeats language from Xi's July 2026 World AI Conference keynote (Joining Hands to Build a Just and Equitable System For Global AI Governance (Xi Jinping, WAIC keynote, July 2026)), there under the heading of multilateralism and tied to "the important role of the United Nations." The BRICS statement does not name a forum or an instrument.
The open source and inclusive AI initiative
The statement puts forward five cooperation initiatives, introduced in a section on supply chains, an integrated market, and incubating innovation and future industries. AI is the first:
First, the open source and inclusive AI initiative. China will be a pioneer in establishing a BRICS AI open source community, support the cooperation in developing and applying large language models, hold specialized AI seminars and training courses, and build an open ecosystem for AI.
The commitment carries no funding figure, no institution, no timetable and no compute commitment, and nothing in the text states that the community exists or has members.
The remaining four initiatives are: a trade and investment facilitation initiative, proposing a BRICS special economic zone partnership with an "intelligent portal" and a BRICS Forum on Trade in Services the following year; a digital industry cooperation initiative, pushing for a BRICS digital ecosystem cloud platform with digital skills training, technological exchange and industrial alignment; an intelligent manufacturing cooperation initiative, offering assistance in building smart factories and developing standards and norms; and a science and technology talent development initiative, proposing a BRICS engineer cultivation alliance with mutual recognition of competency standards and a BRICS youth exchange programme for scientific and technological innovation.
Surrounding argument
The AI passages sit inside a broader argument about international rules and the Global South. The statement holds that "international rules must be written by all countries," that "the logic of 'might makes right' does not hold," and that international law should apply "free from double standards"; it calls for upholding the United Nations' authority, WTO reform in "the right direction" with most-favored-nation treatment preserved, support for the New Development Bank, and reform of the international financial architecture to increase developing countries' "representation and voice."
Figures cited for China's Global Development Initiative are the statement's own claims rather than independently verified: over 2,000 projects in five years, training for more than 200,000 professionals, benefits in more than 120 countries, and zero-tariff treatment for all 53 African countries with diplomatic relations with China. The closing section ties the initiatives to China's 15th Five-Year Plan (MIIT — Information and Communications Industry Development 15th Five-Year Plan (Gong Xin Bu Gui [2026] No. 188)), described as "both a blueprint for China's development and a cooperation list for the rest of the world."
Provenance and translation
Captured from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs' own English-language site; parallel official Chinese, French and Russian versions are published with sequential document identifiers. This is the Ministry's official English rendering, and where a phrase carries weight — "develop AI for the positive and for good" in particular — the Chinese text is the controlling version.
The venue differs from the vault's other Xi capture: Joining Hands to Build a Just and Equitable System For Global AI Governance (Xi Jinping, WAIC keynote, July 2026) is a keynote at a Chinese-hosted technology conference, while this is a national statement at an India-hosted summit session. The two should not be read as a single continuing address.
Relationships
- related: Joining Hands to Build a Just and Equitable System For Global AI Governance (Xi Jinping, WAIC keynote, July 2026) — the July 2026 keynote whose openness and capacity-building language this statement extends to a specific bloc
- related: Xi Jinping — speaker
- related: BRICS — the grouping addressed
- related: Chinese AI Policy — the policy programme the statement advances internationally
- related: Open-Weight Frontier Models — the open-weight strategy the open-source initiative extends
- related: World Artificial Intelligence Cooperation Organization (WAICO) — the China-led governance body proposed at the predecessor forum
- related: MIIT — Information and Communications Industry Development 15th Five-Year Plan (Gong Xin Bu Gui [2026] No. 188) — the domestic plan the closing section invokes