Trump-Xi summit puts AI safety talks on the table but neither side wants to slow down
Summary
During a summit between U.S. President Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping, both countries are discussing how to manage risks from increasingly powerful AI systems, such as unauthorized access incidents and AI being used in cyberattacks. However, both nations prioritize winning the AI race over slowing development, and they disagree on key issues like U.S. restrictions on selling advanced AI chips to China and China's practice of distillation (training models on outputs from more advanced U.S. systems).
Solution / Mitigation
The likeliest areas of agreement could include 'common definitions and frameworks for AI safety for powerful models and an emergency communication mechanism to discuss incidents,' according to Aalok Mehta of the Wadhwani AI Center. A U.S. Treasury official discussed the prospect of a 'U.S.-China AI dialogue' that would include 'a channel for incidents up to a national security level.'
Classification
Affected Vendors
Related Issues
Original source: https://www.cnbc.com/2026/09/23/trump-xi-meeting-ai-safety-chips-us-china-dialogue.html
First tracked: September 23, 2026 at 08:01 AM
Classified by LLM (prompt v3) · confidence: 85%