APEC Economies Back Open-Source AI Cooperation, Security Protections

According to CNBC, the 21 APEC member economies, including the U.S. and China, issued a Chengdu statement on artificial intelligence that stressed security, data protection and intellectual property rights while supporting open-source development. The statement also backed models and projects that use strong security assurance in development and deployment. China’s industry and information technology minister, Li Lecheng, said it was the first APEC AI statement to include open-source cooperation at a ministerial level, and he said the parties recognized AI risks and encouraged dialogue among government, business and academia on cybersecurity, supply chain resilience and online scams. Winston Ma, an adjunct professor of law at New York University, said the statement showed Asia-Pacific moving toward open-weight systems tied to state-coordinated energy, telecom and digital infrastructure. Wei Sun, principal analyst for artificial intelligence at Counterpoint Research, said the agreement was meaningful because it recognized trusted open-source AI as worth supporting, and said the phrase strong security assurance gives more room for security-conscious economies to back open models while still demanding testing, transparency, data protection and deployment controls.