China casts its ‘open-source’ AI net. Belgrade and Algiers are also on the hook

‘We must establish extensive international cooperation and support the countries of the Global South, equipping them with the capacity to bridge the digital divide, promote sustainable development, and prevent a new historical injustice from arising in the field of artificial intelligence as well’: the speech delivered by Chinese President Xi Jinping on 17 July at the opening of the first World Artificial Intelligence Conference in Shanghai is not merely a technological proclamation. It is a political manifesto. We are witnessing the…