AI as a Foundation for Human Progress

From April 24 to 26, the Shanghai Forum 2026 convened under the theme “Reconstructed Era: Innovation and Co-Governance.” Nearly 400 scholars from think tanks, universities, governments, and enterprises across over 50 countries and regions engaged in dialogue on topics such as AI governance, green transformation, and development in the Global South. Participants emphasized that AI should not become a tool for competition and conflict but rather a cornerstone for human progress.

Xue Zizhao, Vice President and Head of Capital Markets at MiniMax Technology, stated that the development of the AI industry is sweeping in like a tsunami, bringing profound changes and significant influence. Previous AI models were merely specialized tools for specific tasks, but the industry has now progressed towards general intelligence, where a single model can serve everyone globally. The true driver of industry growth is no longer traffic from the internet era but the continuous improvement of model intelligence.

Regarding industry dynamics, he noted that the entry barrier to the AI sector is not just about funding and computing power; rather, continuous innovation and iteration speed are the real keys to success. This innovation capability pushes model performance to new heights every three to six months, continuously opening up new market spaces. In this landscape, Chinese models are rapidly closing the gap with the United States, particularly excelling in programming, intelligent agents, and multimodal tasks. Additionally, China’s open-source model strategy has garnered interest from many countries and enterprises worldwide.

Once models surpass L3 intelligent agent capabilities, they enter a “self-recursive” development cycle, where models autonomously participate in designing their next-generation versions, thus accelerating the enhancement of professional capabilities across various industries.

Bjorn Stevens, Director of the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology and a fellow of the American Geophysical Union, remarked that humanity is entering a new climate era filled with “unexplainable changes.” AI serves as the “Aladdin’s lamp” to unravel this paradox. By using generative AI to learn the underlying distributions of physical models, planners can interactively generate specific scenarios, transforming dull data into actionable disaster prevention tools.

Stevens also pointed out that the current technological capabilities are largely in place: there are both continuously improving physics-based models and efficient AI interactions with data. However, to truly unleash this potential, several key supports are needed: access to quintillion-level computing resources, establishing standards for training data and its representations, enhancing the dialectical interaction between research and practical application, and continuously advancing Earth system monitoring capabilities.

Xu Wenwei, a professor at Fudan University’s Center for Technology Innovation Strategy and former Executive Director at Huawei Technologies, stated that AI will evolve from individual capabilities to multi-agent organizational-level collaboration. The enhancement of AI capabilities will increasingly come from environmental interactions, transitioning from “knowledge reproduction” to “action intelligence.” Furthermore, AI is fostering the emergence of an “agent economy,” where self-evolution paradigms allow AI to progress from merely “executing tasks” to “continuous growth.”

In terms of industrial empowerment, Xu believes that AI will become part of a new foundational capability, altering not only application layers but also the methodologies of scientific research and engineering innovation. Regarding AI governance, he emphasized a strategy of layered, tiered, technology-first, and agile governance. Current governance faces two major challenges: regulatory lag and fragmentation. It is essential to draw lessons from the global unified standards in the telecommunications industry to promote effective integration of international standards and national regulatory frameworks. Enterprises should embed governance throughout the entire lifecycle of research and development, deployment, and operation, utilizing explainability tools and digital watermarks to ensure governance is executable, verifiable, and traceable.

He stressed the need to bridge the digital divide, adhere to the principle of technology for good, and build a safe, trustworthy, inclusive, and beneficial intelligent system that truly serves human endeavors in education, healthcare, environmental protection, and poverty alleviation.

The Shanghai Forum, founded in 2005, is co-hosted by Fudan University and the Cui Zhongxian Academic Institute, with the Fudan Development Research Institute as the organizer. Leveraging Fudan University’s academic strengths and based in Shanghai, the forum has consistently adhered to its mission of “focusing on Asia, addressing hot topics, gathering elites, promoting interaction, enhancing cooperation, and seeking consensus,” becoming one of the most internationally influential brand forums hosted by domestic universities.