On July 16, 29 countries and regions signed an agreement in Shanghai: the Agreement on the Establishment of the World Artificial Intelligence Cooperation Organization (WAICO). This is the world's first intergovernmental international organization in the field of artificial intelligence, with its headquarters permanently located in Shanghai. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres personally attended the signing ceremony.
One day later, the 2026 World Artificial Intelligence Conference (WAIC 2026) opened in Shanghai. The exhibition area exceeded 100,000 square meters for the first time, with over 1,100 companies participating and more than 300 products making their global debut.
Why did a technology expo give birth to a global governance organization?
[What Has WAIC Done in Nine Years?]
In 2018, the first WAIC was held in Shanghai with an exhibition area of about 10,000 square meters, more like an industry showcase.
Nine years later, the numbers have become: 100,000 square meters, 1,100 companies, over 3,000 exhibits, and 9 Turing Award and Nobel Prize laureates in attendance.
But scale expansion is only the surface. What is really worth noting is the shift in the conference topic structure.
This year's conference features 172 forums. Industrial development, talent ecosystem, and computing infrastructure are the three most frequently appearing keywords. Transportation (6 forums), manufacturing (5 forums), and finance (4 forums) lead among vertical industry forums. The proportion of discussions purely on model parameters and academic frontiers is declining, while discussions around industry solutions and commercial applications are on the rise.
In other words, WAIC is shifting from showcasing how powerful technology is to discussing how technology can be applied.
This shift is precisely the prerequisite for it to take on institutional functions.
[From Forum Initiatives to International Organization: Three Steps in Three Years]
The establishment of WAICO was not accidental. It reflects the urgent need in the global development of artificial intelligence.
In 2024, WAIC set up a Global Governance section for the first time, bringing AI governance from an academic topic into the conference agenda.
In 2025, the conference released the Shanghai Initiative on Global AI Governance, forming the first multilateral consensus text.
In 2026, 29 countries and regions jointly signed the establishment agreement, transforming forum initiatives into a formal international organization.
From agenda setting to consensus building to institutional implementation, this pace is not particularly fast in the history of international organizations, but given the complexity of AI governance issues and the difficulty of balancing various interests, this rhythm has its inherent rationality and urgency.
According to the agreement text, WAICO's functions cover three levels: promoting international cooperation in AI, advancing global governance rule-making, and supervising the development of AI technology in a beneficial, safe, and fair direction.
The headquarters being set in Shanghai is a direct reflection of its deep binding with the international expo platform.
[The Strategic Pioneering Value of Expos]
In 1851, the London Great Exhibition promoted free trade agreement negotiations.
In 1957, the Canton Fair began to serve as China's window for foreign trade.
In 2018, the CIIE gave birth to a year-round trading platform mechanism.
In 2014, the World Internet Conference held in Wuzhen also evolved from a conference into an international, industry-specific, non-profit social organization (the founding ceremony was held in Beijing on July 12, 2022).
The strategic pioneering value of expos must be examined in the larger data landscape of China's exhibition industry. Expos are extending from product showcases to rule-making platforms.
In 2025, the total exhibition area of national trade exhibitions in China approached 160 million square meters, with Chinese venue capacity accounting for over 30% of the global total. Shanghai held 978 exhibitions that year with a total area of 19.34 million square meters, with international exhibition area maintaining above 80%.
China's exhibition industry is already large enough to be called a world exhibition powerhouse by volume. But the question is no longer how much bigger it can get, but how much the value per square meter can increase.
On June 22, over 300 global exhibition CEOs gathered in Shanghai under the theme: From Scale to Value. The German model that we have been studying and emulating deserves re-examination. What path should China's exhibition industry take?
Meanwhile, the 28th China Building Expo in Guangzhou saw a 43% year-on-year increase in overseas buyers on the opening day, with significant expansion in buyer delegations from the Middle East, Russian-speaking regions, ASEAN, and other emerging markets.
Two data points: one pointing to the demand for higher value density, the other to substantial breakthroughs in overseas markets. The growth logic of China's exhibition industry is shifting from area-driven to value-driven, and from internationalization to globalization.
[Where Is the Next Growth Pole for the Exhibition Industry?]
If the WAIC case shows that expos can become carriers of institutional innovation, can other industry expos find their own WAICO moment?
There is no standard answer to this question. But it at least opens up a direction worth serious discussion in the industry.
When an expo is no longer just about displaying products, but begins to define rules and facilitate institutions, the value assessment coordinates of the exhibition industry may need to be recalibrated.
This article is an original industry observation from Global Expo, with data and cases from public reports. It does not constitute any commercial advice.