The United States and China unveiled a protocol on best practices for artificial intelligence on Thursday, as President Donald Trump met with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing for a two-day summit.
'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,' U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told CNBC on Thursday.
'The reason we are able to have wholesome discussions with the Chinese on AI is because we are in the lead,' Bessent said. 'I do not think we would be having the same discussions if they were this far ahead of us.'
Bessent said he expects a big step-function jump in upcoming large language model releases from Alphabet's Gemini and OpenAI. Washington has restricted sales of advanced semiconductors, primarily from Nvidia, to China to limit the country's AI development. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang joined Trump's delegation to China as a late addition.
When asked about reports that Washington 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.
Trump and Xi wrapped up their first major meeting of the week at 12 p.m. local time Thursday. Beijing's readout said Xi emphasized that Taiwan is the most important issue for bilateral relations and warned against mishandling the issue. Bessent said Trump would say more on Taiwan in the coming days.
