State Council Meeting Calls AI a 'Key Variable' to Turn Into 'Strong Increment'

At a State Council executive meeting on October 16, officials called artificial intelligence a 'key variable' that must be turned into a 'strong increment' for high-quality development, the Financial Times (China) reported on October 19. The meeting said China should use its complete industrial system, rich application scenarios and strong engineering capability, and let real-world deployment pull technology forward rather than chase mere metrics. It urged strengthening the foundation through tech breakthroughs, algorithm innovation, compute-power and energy coordination, and high-quality data supply, while putting AI's main battlefield in the real economy and encouraging industry-academia-research joint development. On governance, the meeting called for categorized, by-industry risk control, ongoing risk assessment, and adaptive regulation covering data security, content risk and ethics, balancing innovation vitality with risk prevention.

Source: Financial Times (China) / Toutiao, Oct 19, 2026 | 2026-10-19