APEC eyes need for standards to cover AI

Representatives from the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Sub-Committee on Standards and Conformance recently gathered in Dalian, Liaoning province, for in-depth discussions on issues including harmonizing standards and disseminating good regulatory practices that support the responsible use of artificial intelligence and the broader deployment of clean energy.

"The two issues that China has raised this year are important. They're a new type of matter that we need to take into serious consideration and keep going in that direction," said Byung Goo Kang, vice-chair of the APEC SCSC.

There will be a new type of regulation on AI, he said. Economies need to exchange information on standards or conformity assessment related to AI, as well as products or compliance embedded in AI.

The SCSC held its second plenary meeting of 2026 on Aug 21-22 in Dalian, as a key component of the Third APEC Senior Officials' Meeting (SOM3) this year. More than 70 delegates attended the event, representing APEC member economies, regional partnership bodies and international standardization organizations.

They exchanged views on the year's key work priorities, consolidating the foundation for standards-related cooperation in SOM3.

"It's important to build trust among the economies," said Kang.

He pointed out that mutual recognition looks very good, but in practice there are many barriers to accepting or recognizing each other's testing reports or certifications.

"We hope that with standards or conformity assessment there shouldn't be any barriers, so we are sharing information and trying to build a better regulatory system or better standards to help our industry," he said.

During the two-day session, participants reviewed annual reports from regional partnership bodies and discussed ongoing SCSC projects and new proposals.

Under the SOM3 framework, China organized a series of high-level thematic seminars focusing on areas of shared interest among APEC economies, including the silver economy, cross-border e-commerce, road transport and voluntary sustainability standards.

Bilateral and multilateral consultations were held to align project proposals and promote joint endorsement, advancing regional harmonization of standards and mutual recognition of conformity assessment.

Delegates reaffirmed that standards and conformity assessment serve as "intangible infrastructure" for trade and investment facilitation in the Asia-Pacific region.

Through regulatory alignment, technical standard coordination and mutual recognition of assessment results, barriers to cross-border compliance can be effectively reduced, unlocking the region's growth potential.

"The APEC region is a great market. We have to deal with making technical barriers in this market less and less," said Anton Shalaev, head of Russia's Federal Agency on Technical Regulating and Metrology, adding that the SCSC can be a very good tool through which the economies can exchange their views on how to reduce these technical barriers.

For emerging technologies such as the bioeconomy and AI, he said that economies need very unified rules and special terms in conformity assessment, as well as measures to eliminate trade and technological barriers.

Data from the State Administration for Market Regulation showed that during the 14th Five-Year Plan period (2021-25), China implemented 14 cooperative projects under the SCSC, covering the digital economy, green transition, the silver economy and food safety.