Trump and Xi to Discuss AI Cooperation During Beijing Meeting

The stakes for AI security have risen sharply in the runup to the first trip to China by a sitting U.S. president in nearly a decade. Senior U.S. officials told reporters in a briefing ahead of the planned summit that the two countries are willing to explore channels of deconfliction on artificial intelligence.

The meeting between President Donald Trump and Xi Jinping will test whether differences in the two countries' approaches to the technology can lead to cooperation. China's national cybersecurity regulator on Friday published guidelines for ensuring safe use of agentic AI.

The country has underscored AI control from the start of its technology race with the United States. A robotic voice system in Hangzhou warned pedestrians and drivers at a street intersection about a scooter rider not wearing a helmet, even though the rider appeared to be wearing one.

The city and others are testing robot police officers. Education and research ecosystems remain the core drivers of AI progress. China aims to achieve an AI penetration rate of over 70 percent in key industries by next year. Many of China's high-tech startups have roots in one of those institutions.

A student from the University of Wisconsin-Madison currently on exchange at a Chinese university said AI feels more behind-the-scenes in the Midwest while it is integrated into daily life in China.

Fifty percent of Americans are wary of AI compared with an average of 33 percent in other G7 countries according to Pew surveys. In China, fear of being displaced by the technology has motivated faster adoption by people and businesses. Courts there are ruling in favor of human workers in related cases.

Beijing initially took months to approve local alternatives to ChatGPT but has since moved to encourage adoption while issuing guidance on AI use in schools. Stanford researchers concluded in this year's annual AI report that the China-U.S. AI model performance gap has effectively closed.

The latest version of China's open-sourced DeepSeek model has reduced its reliance on U.S. chips.

A director of international political studies at a state-affiliated Chinese think tank said the two countries could work on a global treaty to regulate the use of AI in the military. He stated that an AI arms race would be bad not just for both countries but for all humanity.

Governments are typically followers rather than leaders of tech innovation. The U.S. government declined China's invitation to organize industry-specific meetings between senior Chinese leaders and U.S. CEOs. A U.S. executive with direct knowledge of the arrangements said the decision was made out of concern that American businesses would appear too close to Beijing.

Iran's foreign minister met with his Chinese counterpart in Beijing on Wednesday ahead of the Trump-Xi summit.