U.S. Treasury Secretary Says America Leads in AI Talks With China

The U.S. can talk to China about AI because "we are in the lead," U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told CNBC. The countries unveiled a protocol on best practices for the rapidly improving technology as President Donald Trump held a two-day meeting in Beijing with Chinese President Xi Jinping.

"The two AI superpowers are gonna start talking. We're gonna set up a protocol in terms of how do we go forward with best practices for AI to make sure non-state actors don't get a hold of these models," Bessent told Joe Kernen on Thursday on the sidelines of the meeting.

"The reason we are able to have wholesome discussions with the Chinese on AI is because we are in the lead," he added. Bessent said he does not think the same discussions would occur if China led in the technology. He anticipates a big "step-function jump" in upcoming large language model releases from Google's Gemini and OpenAI.

Washington has sought to limit China's AI development by restricting sales of advanced semiconductors, primarily from Nvidia, to the country. The chipmaker's CEO, Jensen Huang, joined Trump's delegation to China as a late addition. When asked about a Reuters report that Washington had cleared sales of Nvidia's H200 AI chips to several major Chinese technology firms, Bessent said there had been "a lot of back and forth" on the matter.

Anthropic has alarmed many in Washington and other countries with the Mythos AI model, which is supposed to have powerful cyberattack capabilities. The company said it would initially release it to select business partners.

m. local time Thursday. Beijing's readout said the Chinese leader emphasized that Taiwan is the most important issue for bilateral relations and warned against mishandling the issue. Bessent told CNBC that President Donald Trump would likely comment on the Taiwan issue in coming days.

" Trump's trip to China this week is the first time a sitting U.S. president has visited the country since 2017. The summit kicked off Thursday morning and is due to wrap up Friday.

Ahead of the Trump-Xi meeting, Bessent met with Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng in South Korea on Wednesday. " The Treasury Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the Seoul meeting. Bessent also visited Tokyo before joining Trump's Beijing trip.

Bessent said in separate X posts that he discussed critical minerals and investment agreements with South Korean President Lee Jae Myung and Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi.