World AI Governance: Xi Jinping opened the 2026 World AI Conference in Shanghai, calling for open, people-centered AI development and shared global governance, while announcing 5,000 AI training opportunities for developing countries and pushing for wider cooperation through a new World AI cooperation framework. Open-Weight AI Shock: Moonshot AI released Kimi K3, a 2.8T-parameter open-weight model, drawing global attention and rattling US tech and semiconductor sentiment; the model is also being positioned as closing the gap with top proprietary systems. Meteorology AI for Global Users: China’s meteorology authority launched an open-source, LLM-based weather service system, trained on 50mn tokens of weather data and integrated with authoritative datasets, with an international version feeding into UN early-warning efforts. Data Infrastructure Push: China says it has built about 120,000 high-quality datasets (1,565 petabytes total), with large-scale annotation pilots employing around 140,000 people. Critical Minerals & Energy Policy: China announced a phased 2% consumption tax on lithium-ion batteries from Sept 1 (rising later) and new consumption taxes for solar cells, signaling tighter support rules for next-gen tech. China-ASEAN Smart Agriculture: In Cambodia, China-ASEAN smart-farm tools using AI and drones are boosting shrimp farmers’ income by more than three times per hectare. Disaster Response: Chongqing reported 8 dead and 34 missing after a rainfall-triggered mountain collapse, with a large national emergency response and specialized rescue teams deployed. Arctic Monitoring: The US Coast Guard monitored Chinese research ships transiting US waters and the Bering Sea under an Arctic security operation. Cambodia Tech & Aviation Deals: COMAC, ZTE, Shanghai Construction Group, and a satellite-communications firm all signaled deeper cooperation with Cambodia, spanning civil aviation, telecom and sovereign AI infrastructure, infrastructure investment, and satellite internet.