# US and China Agree on Open-Source AI in Historic APEC Chengdu Declaration > Source: > Published: 2026-07-24 13:07:33+00:00 # US and China Agree on Open-Source AI in Historic APEC Chengdu Declaration At the 2026 APEC Digital and AI Ministerial Meeting in Chengdu, all 21 member economies including the US and China agreed on a joint statement endorsing trusted open-source AI approaches. The first APEC AI ministerial declaration to explicitly back open-source models lands amid US debate about banning Chinese open-weight models and escalating chip export tensions. At the 2026 APEC Digital and AI Ministerial Meeting in Chengdu on July 23, all 21 member economies, including the United States and China, agreed on a joint statement endorsing "trusted open-source approaches" to [artificial intelligence](/glossary/artificial-intelligence). This is the first APEC AI ministerial declaration to explicitly back open-source models, and it happened in Chengdu, chaired by China's MIIT Minister Li Lecheng. The statement sets five priority areas and encourages support for open-source AI models "that employ strong security assurance through development and deployment" while "respecting security, data protection and intellectual property rights." It also explicitly acknowledges risks including data breaches, online scams, and "deliberate misuse of AI." The language walks a tightrope between promoting openness and acknowledging danger, and the fact that 21 economies spanning the full US-China rivalry signed it is genuinely notable. The declaration lands in the middle of an active US debate about banning Chinese open-[weight](/glossary/weight) models. Senators are pressing the Trump administration to close loopholes they say allow Huawei to obtain TSMC and Samsung chips through intermediaries. The White House's own 30-day pre-release AI review framework, due before August 1, is reportedly considering [classification](/glossary/classification) of [benchmark](/glossary/benchmark) data and mandatory government review for frontier models. And a Chinese Vice Premier was quoted this week warning domestic AI firms that resisting local chips would be treated as "treasonous." Against that backdrop, a joint APEC statement backing open-source AI from the US and China together is not symbolic. It's a signal that the trade and economic cooperation track still functions even as the security track escalates. Whether it matters depends entirely on implementation. APEC declarations don't bind anyone to anything. But they establish a reference point that will be cited in trade negotiations, bilateral talks, and domestic policy debates for months. For AI companies, the declaration creates an interesting tension. The US government is simultaneously (a) considering banning Chinese open-weight models domestically, (b) signing APEC statements endorsing open-source AI, and (c) building a pre-release review framework that could classify benchmarks. Pick which signal you think will win. ## Related Articles Get AI news in your inbox Daily digest of what matters in AI. ## Key Terms Explained [Artificial Intelligence](/glossary/artificial-intelligence) The science of creating machines that can perform tasks requiring human-like intelligence — reasoning, learning, perception, language understanding, and decision-making. [Benchmark](/glossary/benchmark) A standardized test used to measure and compare AI model performance. [Classification](/glossary/classification) A machine learning task where the model assigns input data to predefined categories. [Weight](/glossary/weight) A numerical value in a neural network that determines the strength of the connection between neurons.