At the 2026 APEC CEO Summit China Forum held in Beijing on June 21, the founder and chairman of JD.com Inc shared his perspective on the ongoing artificial intelligence transformation. He stated that the latest wave of AI technological change has positioned countries around the world on a largely equal starting line.

Unlike previous industrial and information technology revolutions, this round of AI innovation is reshaping the existing development landscape and presenting fresh opportunities for all nations. However, the barriers to entry in the AI industry are currently extremely high. Leading global companies are investing tens of billions of US dollars in areas like technology R&D, computing power infrastructure, and ecosystem development, making it a capital, compute, and infrastructure-intensive sector. This poses a significant developmental challenge for most developing economies within the Asia-Pacific region.

He believes that most developing nations in Asia-Pacific, constrained by factors such as capital, power infrastructure, and computing systems, find it difficult to match the scale of investment seen in European and American firms for foundational computing research and cutting-edge technological breakthroughs. This creates a competitive disadvantage in the race for core AI technologies. Yet, looking at the history of human technological progress, every major revolution has spawned a multitude of new industries, services, demands, and products. The iteration of new technologies inevitably brings with it novel structural development opportunities.

As technologies like artificial intelligence, autonomous vehicles, drones, and smart robots rapidly move towards commercial application, he pointed out that various automated intelligent devices cannot achieve one hundred percent reliability. Emergencies such as extreme weather, mechanical failures, and system anomalies will occur, necessitating timely human intervention for emergency response, handling, and safety control. He predicts that future legislative processes in various countries will likely focus on the safety risks associated with intelligent equipment. It is highly probable that regulations will mandate the deployment of accompanying supervisory personnel to provide a safety net and ensure the secure operation of unmanned devices and smart equipment.