China's New Agentic AI Framework
The country's new agentic AI framework gives us a unique glimpse into its AI implementation plans for strengthening its strategic dominance in the field | Edition #292
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China’s New Agentic AI Framework
A few days ago, the Cyberspace Administration of China published the country's agentic AI framework, making it the world's second country to draft a specific framework for agentic AI, following Singapore (which published one in January).
This framework offers us a glimpse of how the country views agentic AI and how it has chosen to approach it legally and ethically.
It also helps us look more critically at the American and the European regulatory approaches to AI, as neither has approached agentic AI in a more targeted way nor made efforts to keep up with emerging AI harms.
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In recent months, China has enacted a series of legislative acts and policy measures to regulate AI development and deployment in the country, including innovative rules for anthropomorphic AI, AI ethics governance, and generative AI transparency.
China's agentic AI framework, published on May 8, is the country's first policy measure focusing specifically on AI agents.
This framework should be understood in light of the country's State Council's “Opinions on Deepening the Implementation of the AI+”, published in August 2025, which focuses on measures to accelerate the adoption of AI in Chinese society from 2025 to 2035.
Before discussing the agentic framework specifically, China's 2025 AI+ implementation plan deserves special attention, as most people in the West are not familiar with the scope, depth, and ambition of the Chinese AI strategy.
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The implementation plan focuses on the extensive integration of AI within all sectors and fields of the economy and society, and mentions, among other topics, “fostering a new form of ‘intelligent economy’ and ‘intelligent society,’ characterized by human-machine collaboration, cross-border integration, co-creation, and sharing.”
I have been analyzing national AI policies over the past few years, and I have never seen any other plan that embraces “AI transformation” as deeply and thoroughly as China.
This form of accelerated AI adoption will reshape cognition, education, work, human interactions, and the social fabric, potentially leading to various forms of individual and societal harm.
It will also mean a complex, problematic, and potentially fatal transition for many sectors and groups in society.
China seems ready to fully restructure, reshape, and reinvent itself to achieve its “AI first” goal, and its political centralization certainly helps it implement a unified strategy.
Interestingly, the country also seems to acknowledge that successful accelerated growth demands a quick and efficient response to emerging AI harms.
This might be why its recent regulatory provisions for AI, such as those covering anthropomorphism, AI ethics, and AI transparency, have been innovative, forward-looking, and unmatched by the European and American regulatory approaches.
Before we move on to China's Agentic AI Framework, I invite you to read this particular excerpt from China's AI+ implementation plan, which refers to AI agents and sets specific targets for 2027, 2030, and 2035:
“By 2027, China will have achieved extensive and deep integration of AI with six key areas, with the application penetration rate of next-generation smart terminals and intelligent agents exceeding 70%. The core industries of the intelligent economy will experience rapid growth, the role of AI in public governance will be significantly enhanced, and the open cooperation system for AI will be continuously improved.
By 2030, AI will fully empower high-quality development in the country, with the application penetration rate of next-generation smart terminals and intelligent agents exceeding 90%. The intelligent economy will become an important growth engine for the country's economic development, promoting the inclusiveness of technology and the sharing of its benefits.
By 2035, the country will have fully entered a new stage of intelligent economic and intelligent society development, providing strong support for the basic realization of socialist modernization.”
If you compare these goals with those expressed by the United States in America’s AI Action Plan or by Europe in its AI Continent Action Plan, China is much more ambitious, as it is aiming for a 90% AI penetration rate by 2030.
Whether this pace and breadth of AI automation will lead to individual and societal benefits will depend on implementing targeted policies to protect human life, work, education, creativity, relationships, and well-being, including those specifically targeting emerging AI harms, as I mentioned above.
Now, let's dive deep into China's recently launched framework for AI agents, which gives us a unique glimpse into the country's concrete implementation plans for agentic AI and its efforts to strengthen its strategic dominance in the field: