Tsinghua’s Wang Jianmin Calls for a Global Open‑Source AI Ecosystem at UN Side Event

The 2026 AI for Good Global Summit was held in Geneva from July 7‑10, and on July 9 a side event under the United Nations framework focused on “Network‑Intelligence Fusion, Open‑Source for Good – Ubiquitous, Open, Trustworthy, Inclusive.”

The side event was co‑organized by the CAST UN Consultative Committee on Open Source and Innovation (CCOSI) and the Global Technology Association of InfoComm (GTI), bringing together representatives from international organisations, operators, academic research institutes and industry bodies to discuss deep integration of networking and AI, AI safety governance, and the construction of an open‑source ecosystem.

Professor Wang Jianmin, chair of the committee and dean of the School of Software at Tsinghua University, delivered the keynote “Open‑Source Promotes Global AI Innovation.” He called on all stakeholders to maintain open collaboration and jointly build an inclusive, affordable, and unified global open‑source AI ecosystem.

Wang drew on his own experience to explain the core value of open‑source in the AI era, arguing that open‑source is a key engine for technological innovation, widespread accessibility, and transparency. He cited his team’s development and deployment of open‑source projects such as Apache IoTDB, TsFile, and Timer, illustrating how open‑source accelerates the transition of technology from laboratory to industry.

He then analysed China’s position in the global open‑source landscape from three perspectives:

Scale: China ranks third worldwide in both total and active developer numbers, providing a large and continuously active talent pool.

Contribution: China’s open‑source contributions rank second globally; leading companies such as Huawei and Alibaba appear at the top of global contribution lists. Notable examples include DeepSeek‑R1, which topped the US and China Apple App Store free‑download charts within a week of release, and Zhipu AI products serving more than 70 countries and regions.

Trend: The open‑source software sector shows a “dual‑core (China‑US) plus multi‑pole collaboration” development pattern, indicating a shift toward diversified innovation.

Finally, Wang emphasized the importance of open‑source governance and introduced an AI governance toolkit built on the OpenDigger platform.