Russia has finally found an AI club where it can call itself an equal

At least, that is the impression given by Maksim Oreshkin, deputy head of Russia’s presidential administration. According to him, Russia is now among the founding members of the World Artificial Intelligence Cooperation Organization, or WAICO — naturally as an “equal partner”. Better still, Oreshkin says Russia possesses the world’s most advanced AI technologies, which a magnanimous Moscow is ready to share with other countries.

Not sell. Not deploy for geopolitical leverage. Share. Like a grandmother handing apples to her neighbours in autumn, except that instead of apples Russia will presumably be distributing neural networks that nobody outside speeches by Russian officials has yet recognised as the cutting edge of global technology.

The world’s most advanced technology — take their word for it

The RIA Novosti report does not name a single Russian model, breakthrough, international benchmark or product that might support Oreshkin’s magnificent claim. It omits such tiresome details as measurable results, an independent assessment or even a nervous reaction from one of the world’s leading AI laboratories.

The process is much simpler. A Russian official said Russia has the world’s most advanced artificial intelligence, and Russia’s state news agency turned it into a headline. From the standpoint of the scientific method, all that remains is a decree signed by Vladimir Putin temporarily suspending gravity across Russian territory.

Russia does, of course, have genuine AI models, including Sber’s GigaChat and systems developed by Yandex. That is not in dispute. The real question is whether they are enough to declare the country a global technology leader. According to Stanford’s 2026 AI Index, US companies and institutions produced 59 AI models deemed internationally significant in 2025, while China produced 35. The report does not identify Russia as one of the world’s leading model developers. Evidently, the world’s most advanced technology is so advanced that conventional international assessments have not yet learnt how to detect it.

A club of equals

The phrase “equal partner”, on the other hand, can be taken entirely seriously. On 16 July 2026, 29 countries signed WAICO’s founding agreement in Shanghai:

Algeria, Belarus, Brazil, Cambodia, Cameroon, China, Congo, Cuba, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Kyrgyzstan, Laos, Lesotho, Malaysia, Mozambique, Myanmar, Nicaragua, Oman, Pakistan, Russia, Senegal, Serbia, South Africa, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Venezuela and Zambia. Cuba is a particularly interesting equal partner — a country currently struggling to keep the lights on. Its artificial intelligence can therefore presumably function without electricity, which is surely the kind of technological leap the West is unlikely to match for decades.

Anyone scanning the list for the United States, an EU member state, the United Kingdom, Japan, South Korea or India can keep looking. They will not find any of them.

That does not mean every country on the list is technologically irrelevant. China is unquestionably one of the world’s AI leaders, while Brazil, Malaysia, Indonesia and South Africa all have substantial scientific and technological capacity. Even so, WAICO’s founding membership does not resemble a gathering of the world’s most powerful AI laboratories. It looks more like a coalition of Chinese partners, developing countries and governments keen to maintain some political distance from Western-led institutions.

Cambodia, Laos, Lesotho and Nicaragua may, of course, shape the future of artificial intelligence. By the same logic, a local residents’ association could establish a space agency. Nothing in law prevents it, and these days the logo can be generated for free.

The UN secretary-general attended, so it is practically the UN

WAICO, the World Artificial Intelligence Cooperation Organization, is an independent intergovernmental body initiated by China, with its headquarters planned for Shanghai. According to China’s official description, it will promote international cooperation on artificial intelligence and global AI governance, while supporting the development of beneficial, safe and equitable AI. The organisation says it will uphold the purposes of the United Nations Charter.

That does not make WAICO a UN organisation. UN Secretary-General António Guterres attended the signing ceremony, but attending an event and founding an organisation are two different things. A wedding photographer does not automatically become the groom.

China says WAICO will complement work already being carried out within the UN framework. Through the organisation, Beijing wants to coordinate national AI-development strategies, governance rules and technical standards. China has also promised 5,000 AI training opportunities for developing countries over five years, joint centres with several international organisations and access for 30 countries to its AI-based weather-warning system.

All of this is considerably more serious than Oreshkin’s comic self-congratulation. China is not creating WAICO as a joke.

China builds a market; Russia builds headlines

WAICO fits neatly into China’s long-term strategy. The United States and its allies tend to shape AI rules through security, human rights, transparency and export controls. China offers an alternative that puts state sovereignty, technological development, infrastructure and access to AI first.

This can be described as a legitimate attempt to narrow the technological divide between richer and poorer countries. It can just as accurately be described as China’s effort to build an AI ecosystem under its own leadership before developing countries tie their public institutions, data centres and businesses entirely to systems supplied by US technology companies. Researchers examining WAICO’s structure have described it as a possible second centre of gravity in global AI governance — one that places greater emphasis than the Western model on sovereignty and development, and less on rights-based oversight.

If China supplies training, computing power, models, data centres and standards, customers will naturally follow. That is not WAICO’s officially stated purpose, merely a fairly obvious economic and geopolitical consequence. No one builds a free ecosystem to make it easy for users to switch to a rival later.

Russia’s role, at least for now, appears more modest. China brings capital, hardware, models, research and international infrastructure. Russia brings Maksim Oreshkin, who announces that the most advanced technology has been in Russian hands all along.