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Pakistan Joins China in World AI Cooperation Organization (WAICO)
On July 16 in Shanghai, 29 countries, including China, Pakistan and Russia, signed the founding agreement of WAICO, World AI Cooperation Organization. Every BRICS founding member is in, except India. This agreement follows the launch of the US-led Pax Silica, a 24-member coalition, including India, which is designed to counter China's AI efforts. The stated goal of both these competing groups is to provide global governance, including building guardrails and setting standards, for artificial intelligence (AI) technologies.
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| US-China AI Competition |
The announcement of WAICO coincided with the launch of Kimi K3 by Chinese startup Moonshot AI. Kimi K3 is the largest open-weight AI model ever built, its full weights free for the world to download from July 27. Cheaper open-source AI models like Kimi K3 pose a serious threat to U.S. proprietary models. By offering 80-90% of the capability at a fraction of the cost or for free, they are squeezing the premium pricing strategies of domestic leaders like OpenAI and Anthropic.
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| Top Global AI Talent. Marco Polo AI Talent Tracker |
Companies, including US-based firms, are rapidly adopting AI cost-saving measures. For example, Airbnb relies on Alibaba’s Qwen model, startups like Lindy have transitioned from Anthropic to DeepSeek, and DoorDash has employed Moonshot AI for specific workflows. Overall, Chinese open-source options now account for over 40% of Hugging Face AI community and 80% of open-source developer usage globally.
Open-source AI models—which are roughly 8 to 10 times cheaper to run than proprietary ones—are rapidly closing the reasoning and contextual intelligence gap with frontier models like Anthropic's Claude. However, open source models shift the responsibility of infrastructure maintenance and security to the user.
The people of Chinese PRC origin account for 47% of the top 20% AI talent in the world based on undergraduate degree, according to a survey. Americans make up 18%, Europeans 12% and Indians 5% of the global AI researchers. In terms of the countries they serve, 57% of them work in the United States, 12% in China, 8% in the UK, 4% each in France and Germany and 3% in Canada as of 2022. While the US still has the lion's share of the top talent, its share has declined from 65% in 2019 to 57% in 2022. Marco Polo talent tracker lists Pakistan among a dozen countries for top AI talent in Asia.
More than half (15 out 25) of the institutions (companies and universities) where the top AI researchers work are located in the United States, while 6 are in China. The remaining four are in the UK, Switzerland, Singapore and Canada, according to Marco Polo Global AI Talent Tracker.
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Riaz Haq's Youtube Channel
Riaz Haq
@alvinfoo
Just returned from WAIC 2026 in Shanghai.
One thing became crystal clear.
Most people in the West are looking at the AI race through the wrong lens.
They see:
• OpenAI vs DeepSeek
• Nvidia vs Huawei
• US vs China
That’s not what I saw.
China isn’t trying to win the chatbot race.
It’s trying to build the world’s largest AI-powered economy.
That changes everything.
Some observations from the ground:
→ AI is moving beyond demos into real industrial deployment.
Factories, logistics, manufacturing, healthcare, finance, education and government dominated the conversation, not consumer chatbots.
→ Compute sovereignty is no longer optional.
China is investing across the entire AI stack, chips, networking, cloud infrastructure and software optimization, not simply because it’s faster, but because strategic independence matters.
→ Robotics has crossed an important threshold.
This year’s focus wasn’t robots dancing.
It was robots working.
Factories.
Warehouses.
Hotels.
Industrial inspection.
Real production environments.
Deployment matters more than demonstrations.
→ The ecosystem is much broader than many realise.
Everyone knows DeepSeek.
But also watch:
• Qwen
• Kimi
• GLM
• MiniMax
• Baichuan
China now has multiple world-class AI companies competing aggressively across different layers of the stack.
Competition creates speed.
→ China also wants to influence AI governance.
Technology is only part of the strategy.
Standards.
Rules.
International collaboration.
Countries that help shape global AI governance may influence AI adoption just as much as those building frontier models.
My biggest takeaway?
The AI race is no longer just about building smarter models.
It’s about building better infrastructure.
Better deployment.
Better ecosystems.
And ultimately…
A larger AI-powered economy.
The companies that create the most economic value, not necessarily the highest benchmark scores, will define the next decade.
That’s the signal I believe many people outside China are still underestimating.
https://x.com/alvinfoo/status/2080507895431700546?s=61&t=mgTxrm...
yesterday
Riaz Haq
With an initial capacity of 8.5 megawatts, Sky47 Karakorum-01 has been developed as a carrier-neutral, AI-ready digital infrastructure platform designed to support advanced computing requirements.
The facility includes sovereign cloud architecture and enterprise-level security systems aimed at enabling the storage and management of sensitive national data within Pakistan.
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ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Friday said the newly inaugurated Sky47 Karakorum-01 Data Centre would strengthen the country’s digital infrastructure, improve data security and support the expansion of emerging technologies.
The facility, jointly inaugurated by Prime Minister Sharif and Chief of Defence Forces (CDF) and Field Marshal Syed Asim Munir, was described by officials as the country’s largest artificial intelligence-ready data centre.
Officials said the facility would help expand digital infrastructure, secure critical data and increase computing capacity to meet the growing requirements of artificial intelligence technologies.
Speaking at the ceremony, the prime minister said the facility represented a major investment in Pakistan’s technological development and reflected cooperation among national institutions. “Where there is determination, there is always a way forward,” he said, adding that the completion of the project showed Pakistan’s ability to undertake large-scale national initiatives.
He said the facility would support artificial intelligence applications, high-performance computing and secure data management, while contributing to the country’s digital transformation efforts. He urged government institutions to integrate their systems with the new infrastructure and utilise its capabilities.
With an initial capacity of 8.5 megawatts, Sky47 Karakorum-01 has been developed as a carrier-neutral, AI-ready digital infrastructure platform designed to support advanced computing requirements.
The facility includes sovereign cloud architecture and enterprise-level security systems aimed at enabling the storage and management of sensitive national data within Pakistan.
Officials said the centre would provide secure infrastructure for government organisations, businesses and technology companies, while reducing reliance on external data-hosting facilities.
The launch comes as countries around the world continue to expand computing capacity and develop infrastructure required for artificial intelligence applications. Data centres have become an important part of the digital economy, supporting government services, financial systems and emerging technologies.
Prime Minister Sharif said similar facilities would be established in Karachi and Lahore to further expand the country’s digital ecosystem.
He also acknowledged the contributions of ZTE, a Chinese telecommunications and information technology company, the Ministry of Information Technology and other stakeholders involved in developing and completing the facility.
He highlighted the role of national coordination in completing the initiative and referred to Marka-e-Haq as an example of how collective efforts could help overcome major challenges.
Sky47 Karakorum-01 is expected to provide additional computing and data infrastructure as Pakistan seeks to expand its digital economy and strengthen its position in the global technology landscape.
yesterday
Riaz Haq
@kejimao
Instead of making Chinese AI sound scary, "AI communism" may even make it more attractive.
Why is the attempt to extract super-profits through proprietary, closed-source systems destined to fail? Because the world is increasingly operating on socialist, if not communist, principles.
Wall Street tycoons, Silicon Valley tech bros, and Pentagon arms merchants still cling to the illusion that seizing a handful of critical nodes will grant them mastery over the entire architecture.
The reality is precisely the opposite: capturing one node merely triggers systemic reconfiguration. The network reroutes around the occupied point, rendering it an island.
https://x.com/kejimao/status/2081015581285962071?s=61&t=mgTxrmI...
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@D162Michele
What the fuck is ‘AI communism’?
Is that suppose to make Chinese AI sound scary? Pathetic!
https://x.com/d162michele/status/2080944378164445617?s=61&t=mgT...
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The above X posts are in response to Daily Telegraph’s headline
Xi’s ‘AI communism’ sparks new era for Made in China
Beijing’s tech companies have motored to within touching distance of US counterparts
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2026/07/25/xis-ai-communism-sp...
Note: Daily Telegraph is a right-wing British newspaper owned by a self-professed pro-Israel German publisher Axel Springer SE
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Axel Springer requires its employees to support Israel's right to exist as part of its core corporate values, leading to internal newsroom friction over editorial independence. The policy is anchored in the company's official "Essentials" guidelines.Corporate Policy DetailsCore Value: Supporting the right of existence of the State of Israel and opposing antisemitism is listed as the second of five non-negotiable company principles.Additional Principles: The guidelines also mandate support for freedom, democracy, the trans-Atlantic alliance, and a free-market economy.Leadership Stance: CEO Mathias Döpfner stated that these values are foundational to the company's identity, telling editorial staff at subsidiaries like Politico that employees who cannot embrace these principles should find work elsewhere.
10 hours ago