Chengdu City, Sichuan Province, southwest China - July 24, 2026 (CCTV - No access Chinese mainland)
1. Various of 2026 APEC High-Level Forum on AI in progress, guest speaking, attendees
2. SOUNDBITE (English) Eduardo Pedrosa, executive director, APEC Secretariat:
"The digital economy is cross-border, and it depends on the flow of data, and it depends on whether or not we trust the data that we are receiving. That requires interoperability across all of our systems. Now, APEC doesn't seek to impose on anyone the kind of systems that they have, but we do work together to make sure that our systems can work together, and that all of our economies, our companies, and our people can actually benefit from that."
3. Various of guest speaking, attendees at forum
4. SOUNDBITE (Chinese) Li Xiaodong, director, Center for Internet Governance, Tsinghua University (partially overlaid with shot 5):
"The breakthrough and revolutionary impact that AI brings to our overall economic development and social changes makes it crucial to fully leverage intergovernmental mechanisms and their role, especially when the outcomes of such breakthroughs and revolutions, as well as their potential future impacts, are unclear. Governments should establish a basic framework for cooperation, within which industry and academia can fully leverage their respective strengths. I believe this is a sound mechanism for us to collectively respond to AI as a breakthrough technology, whose future implications we cannot yet fully foresee."

FILE: China - Exact Location and Date Unknown (CCTV - No access Chinese mainland)
++SHOT OVERLAYING SOUNDBITE++
5. Various of programmers working in office
++SHOT OVERLAYING SOUNDBITE++
6. Various of programmer using AI to write code; computer screen showing code generated by AI
7. Various of automated machines, robotic arms in operation

The 2026 APEC High-Level Forum on AI was held in Chengdu, southwest China's Sichuan Province, on Friday, where experts concurred that the development of AI calls for the coordinated advancement of technological innovation, institutional development, and cross-border cooperation.

The forum issued the Statement on Promoting AI Development in the Asia-Pacific Region, which encourages cooperation in areas such as promoting the development and deployment of AI, and fostering broad cooperation to maximize participation and benefits across APEC.

Experts at the forum noted that the development of AI is no longer an issue that can be handled by a single enterprise, industry, or economy. It requires both technological innovation and institutional development, market competition and cross-border cooperation, as well as frontier breakthroughs and equal participation that bring tangible benefits to more people. The statement is a response to this need.

"The digital economy is cross-border, and it depends on the flow of data, and it depends on whether or not we trust the data that we are receiving. That requires interoperability across all of our systems. Now, APEC doesn't seek to impose on anyone the kind of systems that they have, but we do work together to make sure that our systems can work together, and that all of our economies, our companies, and our people can actually benefit from that," said Eduardo Pedrosa, executive director of the APEC Secretariat.

Experts believe that APEC values consensus-building, voluntarism, and incremental progress. It does not require all economies to adopt the same policy models, but rather calls for exploring specific areas for cooperation based on shared interests.

For rapidly evolving AI, open, flexible, and pragmatic cooperation is conducive to enhancing mutual understanding, building trust, and expanding consensus.

"The breakthrough and revolutionary impact that AI brings to our overall economic development and social changes makes it crucial to fully leverage intergovernmental mechanisms and their role, especially when the outcomes of such breakthroughs and revolutions, as well as their potential future impacts, are unclear. Governments should establish a basic framework for cooperation, within which industry and academia can fully leverage their respective strengths. I believe this is a sound mechanism for us to collectively respond to AI as a breakthrough technology, whose future implications we cannot yet fully foresee," said Li Xiaodong, director of the Center for Internet Governance at Tsinghua University.