Singapore. Indonesia, China, and dozens of other nations have established a global body on artificial intelligence (AI), with Jakarta promising that national interests will remain key in how it interacts with the group.

As many as 29 economies, including Indonesia, China, Russia, and Brazil, inked the agreement on establishing the World Artificial Intelligence Cooperation Organization (WAICO) in Shanghai on Thursday local time. All initial signatories automatically became the group’s founding members. 

This organization, which will have its headquarters in Shanghai, aims to promote global governance on AI.

As AI adoption rises like greased lightning, WAICO wants to ensure the technology promotes healthy, orderly development that benefits all. China had pitched the idea of creating such an organization last year, with its premier Li Qiang saying that Beijing wants to help coordinate global efforts to regulate the technology.

Jakarta intends to use its WAICO membership to promote that global AI governance sticks to a “human-centric approach”. It also wants to make sure that everyone, even the developing economies, can enjoy the technology’s economic boons. In a press statement, Airlangga promised that whatever cooperation and technical alignments are being done via WAICO would “remain in line with national regulations and interests”.

“Indonesia’s digital economy is currently at $13 billion, and we are moving towards unlocking a $300 billion [digital economy]. The numbers are multiplying thanks to AI,” Airlangga said.

WAICO comes amid an intensifying AI race between the US and China, the world's powerhouses for large language models (LLMs). ASEAN’s Malaysia, Laos, Cambodia, and Myanmar also formed the club, further expanding Chinese influence in Southeast Asia.