As concerns grow over the risks posed by artificial intelligence, any global effort to manage the technology may depend on cooperation between the United States and China, even as the two powers increasingly view each other's AI strategies with suspicion.
AI governance is expected to be discussed at a planned meeting next week in Washington between US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping. The issue has become increasingly urgent in both countries, with American technology leaders arguing that preventing the worst possible outcomes from advanced AI will require some level of cooperation with China.
At the same time, Washington and Beijing are competing for an advantage in AI. Trump has warned that stronger regulation of the technology could give China an edge. This could make any agreement at the upcoming meeting limited in scope, but experts say even a small understanding could provide a starting point for broader cooperation.
"A formal agreement or consensus may be near impossible, but they do not need to go that far," said Samm Sacks, a senior fellow at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies' Institute for America, China, and the Future of Global Affairs. "Trump and Xi just need to create political space by acknowledging AI poses risks to both countries."
China and US increasingly divided over AI
Trump has opposed calls for stronger AI regulation, saying it could allow China to overtake the US in the technology. He has repeatedly said the country that leads in AI "wins."
"We are leading China, and all others," Trump said Monday in a social media post.
The two countries are advancing AI in different ways. US companies are developing increasingly powerful systems using advanced computer chips and expanding data center infrastructure. China, meanwhile, is promoting wider global use of open-source and lower-cost AI models.
Chinese AI models have made significant progress and are gaining interest among American companies, despite US-led restrictions limiting China's access to the world's most advanced AI chips.
Most leading US AI models are closed-source, meaning their underlying designs are not publicly available. US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Tuesday that the US needs to develop more open-source models to compete with China.
The US has accused China of making "aggressive, malicious" efforts to obtain capabilities from American AI systems. Beijing has responded by accusing Washington of trying to restrict Chinese companies in order to create a "monopoly of the AI industry."
It remains unclear whether Trump's relationship with Xi will be strong enough to overcome those differences. Still, people with links to the Chinese government say greater coordination on AI could be useful.
At an annual security and defense conference in Beijing, Cui Tiankai, a former Chinese ambassador to the US, said Tuesday that AI is an area where Beijing and Washington should expand dialogue.
"Because there is a need, a growing need, for cooperation," he told the Xiangshan Forum. "So how can we manage the balance?"
US AI leaders seek to limit China while calling for cooperation
Two major US AI companies, Anthropic and OpenAI, restrict access to their services in China and have said protecting America's lead in AI is a national security priority. At the same time, both have supported cooperation with China on AI safety.
In an essay last weekend calling for a slowdown in AI development because of safety concerns, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei said the US should slow China's progress, including by maintaining restrictions on China's access to the world's most advanced AI chips.
He also said that "global pacing will require cooperation with China, the autocratic country with by far the most advanced AI capabilities."
China's Foreign Ministry criticized Amodei's comments Monday, saying that "fearmongering, confrontation and vicious competition will only disrupt the process of global AI governance which serves no one's interest."
China's state-run Global Times newspaper went further, describing his comments as containing measures aimed at restricting China and as a "Cold War playbook" for the AI sector.
Trump has consulted Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, including calling him during a podcast interview Monday. Nvidia has generally supported some exports of its chips to China, arguing that maintaining access could help strengthen an American technology ecosystem and encourage a more open relationship on AI, given the large number of AI researchers in China.
AI's growing capabilities raise concerns in both countries
Officials and policymakers in both the US and China have expressed concern about the increasingly powerful capabilities of AI.
Chen Yixin, head of China's Ministry of State Security, warned in an article Sunday that AI poses a range of threats, including risks to political and ideological security and the possibility of cyberattacks.
Chen said AI could threaten China's political and ideological security if used by people "with ulterior motives." He specifically referred to powerful AI models developed by Anthropic and OpenAI, saying they could be used to "weaponize" cybersecurity vulnerabilities and threaten China's critical information infrastructure.
Other recent AI-related developments have also raised concerns in China. One example was the discovery by a US security firm of vulnerabilities involving WeChat, China's major messaging platform, which also provides payment and other services, said Paul Triolo, a partner at DGA-Albright Stonebridge Group.
Chinese officials said after Trump's meeting with Xi in Beijing in mid-May that the two countries had agreed to pursue dialogue on AI development and governance. However, there has been little progress since then.
Neither China nor the US "can simply seal itself off from the other," said Lizzi C. Lee, a fellow at the Asia Society Policy Institute's Center for China Analysis.
She said both governments have an interest in creating safeguards to maintain human control over AI.
"We already know that neither government is going to abandon its competitive AI strategy or pursuit of technological advantage," Lee said.
Meanwhile, Washington and Beijing have been working to build AI partnerships with other countries.
In July, China launched the World Artificial Intelligence Cooperation Organization with 29 founding member countries, including Russia and Pakistan. The group aims to promote global AI governance.
This month, Xi called on BRICS countries to speed up the creation of a global AI governance framework and establish an open-source AI community.
Some political observers viewed the China-led organization as a response to the US-led Pax Silica initiative, which was launched last year to strengthen cooperation with countries including Japan, the UK and Australia on AI supply chains.
Asked by CBS' "Face the Nation" about his expectations for the Trump-Xi meeting, Amodei said the longer-term goal could be for the two countries to work together to "put a speed limit on the rate of AI progress." However, he said achieving such cooperation would likely be difficult.
A recent social media post by Yuyuantantian, a Chinese state media-linked account, also expressed caution ahead of the meeting.
"Only after the United States first demonstrates that the safety rules are equally effective for its own model companies can substantive discussions between the U.S. and China take place," the post said.