The following article is a summary by China’s state media of a Chinese Politburo collective study session on AI, at which Xi Jinping spoke. Xi emphasized the importance of China achieving superiority in AI and highlighted China’s need to improve domestic AI chips and software. He also urged the country to use AI to turbocharge scientific research. However, Xi mentioned AI risks in his speech as well, and called for new AI laws, regulations, and technology risk monitoring efforts. This is the first such Politburo session on AI since 2018.

An archived version of the Chinese source text is available online at:    https://perma.cc/5UBL-GCVG

At the 20th Collective Study Session of the CCP Central Committee Politburo, Xi Jinping Stresses: Persist in Being Self-Reliant, Be Strongly Oriented Toward Applications, and Push the Orderly Development of Artificial Intelligence

Xinhua News Agency, Beijing, April 26 [2025]: On the afternoon of April 25, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Central Committee Politburo held its 20th collective study session,¹ on strengthening the development and supervision of artificial intelligence (AI).² While chairing the study session, Xi Jinping, general secretary of the CCP Central Committee, stressed that, faced with the new trend of rapid progress of new generation AI technology, we must give full play to the advantages of the new structure for leveraging national capabilities (新型举国体制), persist in being self-reliant (自立自强), be strongly oriented toward applications, and push the healthy and orderly development of China’s AI in a beneficial, safe, and fair direction.

Comrade Zheng Nanning (郑南宁), a professor at Xi’an Jiaotong University, gave an explanatory lecture on this topic and put forth suggestions for work. The comrades of the Central Committee Politburo listened studiously to this explanatory lecture and engaged in discussion.

After listening to the explanatory lecture and the discussion, Xi Jinping delivered an important speech. He pointed out that AI is a strategic technology that is leading a new round of scientific and technological (S&T) revolution and industrial transformation, and it is profoundly changing human modes of production and ways of life. The Party Central Committee attaches great importance to the development of AI. In recent years, we have completed top-level design, strengthened work arrangements, and promoted a comprehensive and systematic leap in China’s comprehensive AI strength. We must face disparities head-on, redouble our efforts, comprehensively advance AI S&T innovation, industrial development, and empowerment of applications, perfect the structural mechanism for AI supervision, and firmly grasp the initiative in AI development and governance.

Xi Jinping stressed that if we are to seize this critical moment and win superiority in the field of AI, it is necessary to achieve breakthroughs in areas such as basic theory, methods, and tools. We must continue to strengthen basic research, concentrate our efforts on mastering core technologies such as high-end microchips and foundational software (基础软件) and construct an autonomously controllable (自主可控) AI foundational software and hardware system with collaborative operations. We must use AI to lead a paradigm shift in scientific research and speed up S&T innovation and breakthroughs in every field.

Xi Jinping pointed out that China’s data resources are abundant, its industrial system is matchless, its application scenarios are bountiful, and the room for growth in the market is enormous. We must promote deep integration between AI S&T innovation and industrial innovation, construct an innovation system that is led by enterprises and features industry-academia-research institute-user (产学研用) collaboration, help reinvent and upgrade traditional industries, and open up a new fast track for the development of strategic emerging industries and future industries. We must make overall plans to advance the construction of computing power infrastructure, and deepen the development, use, and open sharing of data resources.

Xi Jinping stressed that, as AI is a new technology and a new field, policy support is very important. We must holistically utilize policies in areas such as intellectual property rights, fiscal policy and taxation, government procurement, and opening facilities to the public, and do a good job of writing S&T financing documents. We must promote AI education throughout all stages of academic studies and promote AI literacy education for all of society, and cultivate an inexhaustible wellspring of high-caliber talent. We must improve the mechanisms that provide assurance for AI scientific research, professional support, and talent evaluation, and build platforms and create the conditions for all kinds of talent to put their talents to use.

Xi Jinping pointed out that while AI brings with it an unprecedented opportunity for development, it also brings with it unprecedented risks and challenges. We must grasp the trends and laws of AI development, speed up the formulation and improvement of the relevant laws and regulations, policy system, application specifications, and ethical criteria, construct systems for technology monitoring, early warning for risks, and emergency response, and ensure the safety, reliability, and controllability of AI.

Xi Jinping stressed that AI can be an international public good that enriches all of humanity. We must launch broad international cooperation in AI, help Global South countries strengthen construction of their technological capabilities, and do China’s part to heal the global intelligence rift. Push all parties to strengthen linkages and collaboration in development strategies, governance rules, and technical standards, and form global governance frameworks, standards, and norms at an early date.

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1. Translator’s note: In the Xi Jinping era, the CCP Politburo has held a Politburo collective study session (集体学习) roughly every six weeks. Collective study sessions typically occur in the afternoon, after full meetings of the Politburo. Each collective study session focuses on one policy issue and allows the Politburo to do a semi-deep dive on the subject. The Politburo always invites one or more experts on the topic at hand from academia or the think tank world to give an explanatory lecture at the session, and Xi Jinping also gives a speech on the topic.
2. Translator’s note: The only previous Politburo collective study session on AI took place on October 31, 2018. An English translation of Xinhua’s readout of that session is available online at: https://www.newamerica.org/cybersecurity-initiative/digichina/blog/xi-jinping-calls-for-healthy-development-of-ai-translation/.