As AI leaders warn of catastrophe, US and China shun slowdown calls

As industry leaders urge a global slowdown in artificial intelligence development for the sake of humanity, the two superpowers driving the technology’s rapid advancement have given no indication they intend to hit the brakes.

The United States and China, which are locked in a fierce strategic rivalry, have each rebutted calls to slow the pace of AI development, even as industry executives and researchers stress the need for international cooperation to avoid exposing humans to catastrophic – or even existential – risks.

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As US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping prepare to meet on Wednesday in Washington, DC, for the third time this year, expectations for cooperation on AI safety are modest. Observers anticipated measures that, at best, would fall far short of the coordinated slowdown that many experts said is needed.

“The two countries host nearly all frontier labs and most of the models people download,” said Alvin Wang Graylin, a senior fellow at the Asia Society Policy Institute’s Center for China Analysis, describing agreed guardrails between the US and China as “close to a precondition” for safe AI.

“A safety regime covering one side’s models covers half the problem,” Wang Graylin said.

Hampering the prospects for US-China cooperation, analysts said, are mutual mistrust and divergent perceptions of the primary risks involved.

Trump has dismissed fears about AI as a “conspiracy” and suggested guardrails are not needed under his leadership, stressing the need for the US to stay ahead of China in the frontier technology.

“We need an immediate, indefinite international moratorium on frontier AI development.”