OpenAI would support the creation of a global governance body for artificial intelligence led by the US and including China as a member, a top company executive said, hours before the start of President Donald Trump’s high-stakes meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping.
When asked about the China summit, OpenAI’s Vice President of Global Affairs Chris Lehane said Wednesday that the US has an opportunity to use its lead in AI technology to create a global governance mechanism resulting in safer, more resilient systems.
"AI, in some level, transcends a lot of the prevailing or traditional trade type of issues,” Lehane told reporters during a briefing at the company’s offices in Washington. "There is an opportunity to really start to build something up globally, and have countries around the world, including China, potentially participate.”
Such an organisation could resemble the International Atomic Energy Agency, which includes China and sets global safety standards for nuclear energy development to prevent weapons proliferation, Lehane said. One way to establish it would be by connecting the US Commerce Department’s Center for AI Standards and Innovation with AI safety institutes that are being created around the world, he said.
While Lehane said that OpenAI has floated in Washington the idea of linking AI safety institutes, it’s unclear whether the Trump administration would welcome global guidelines that include China. White House officials have previously indicated they would reject the idea of worldwide governance over AI technology.
The White House didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
OpenAI has also called for the US to require government researchers to evaluate cutting-edge models, so their safety can be tested in a classified setting, he added. Meanwhile, the Trump administration has been preparing an executive order on AI cybersecurity that emphasises voluntary rather than compulsory pre-deployment model review.
Still, Anthropic PBC’s announcement about the potential global cyber risk posed by its Mythos artificial intelligence model has shaken up White House AI policy making. Before the US delegation departed, officials said they would explore the possibility of opening a new channel of communication with China to regularly discuss AI issues.
Trump landed in Beijing earlier Wednesday local time for the first state visit to China by a US leader in nine years. His entourage includes senior administration officials as well as more than a dozen US business leaders such as Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang, who was a last-minute addition to the trip.
Trade topics like the flow of rare earths elements and China’s purchases of US agricultural products, along with the ongoing war in Iran, will be top of mind. Artificial intelligence, though, is still set to be a key part of the conversation. Earlier this week, US officials also told reporters that the American side would voice its concerns about AI, though they didn’t go into specifics.
One possible point of discussion is a broader effort by the US to address complaints from US AI companies, including OpenAI and Anthropic, that Chinese developers are unfairly using the outputs of cutting-edge American models to produce rival systems at a fraction of the cost and with fewer guardrails. – Bloomberg
