Trump and Xi face a test over AI control

Hello, I’m Evelyn, writing to you from Beijing. Welcome to the latest edition of The China Connection, a concise summary of what I’m seeing and hearing from local businesses.

While students and businesses in China are embracing AI, the US is becoming more concerned about the negative impact. Will this encourage cooperation on AI security, which US President Donald Trump and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping are discussing? to meet?

Regardless, the city and others are ahead in testing robot police officers. national cybersecurity regulator on Friday published guidelines To ensure the safe use of agency AI.

This is a reminder that in the US-China technology race, Beijing has emphasized control of AI from the beginning; Only now does the US seem to be taking this seriously.

Compared to the Cold War nuclear threat As it grows, hopes are rising that Trump and Xi will talk about AI cooperation in Beijing this week.

Given concerns about the latest AI models, “we are ready… [to explore] channels for resolving the conflict,” senior US officials said in a briefing to reporters ahead of the planned summit.

The stakes are rising rapidly.

US-based Anthropic, Chinese state media reported “Unprecedented capabilities in cyber attacksMeanwhile, the latest version of China’s open-source DeepSeek model moves further away from US chips.

Hai Zhao, director of international political studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, a state-run think tank, said the two countries could work on “a global agreement regulating the use of artificial intelligence in the military.”

“If China [and the] “If the United States gets involved in the AI ​​arms race, it wouldn’t just be bad for both countries, it would be bad for all of humanity,” he said.

But governments are often followers rather than leaders of technological innovation. Education and research ecosystems remain the key drivers.

There, China stands out under Beijing’s authority. Achieving over 70% AI penetration rate in key industries by next year.

According to data from the Netherlands, Zhejiang University in Hangzhou and Jiao Tong University in Shanghai took the top places in the ranking of universities according to scientific performance, surpassing Harvard. Leiden University Ranking Traditional Edition.

Just as Silicon Valley has Stanford, many of China’s high-tech startups, including DeepSeek, have their roots in Zhejiang University. The school’s alumni association published a list. 10 companiesquantum computer player Logistics says it could be “the next DeepSeek” like Bits.

in the USA, a reaction extreme defense technology supplier Palantir manifest last month reinforced fears about the dark side of artificial intelligence. teachers to warn about The impact of artificial intelligence on literacy. there is more worry According to Pew surveys, 50% of Americans are wary of technology, while in other G7 countries this rate is 33% on average.

In China, fears of being displaced by artificial intelligence encourage people and businesses to adopt the technology faster, while courts decide in favor of human workers. After initially taking months to greenlight native ChatGPT alternatives, Beijing has begun to encourage adoption while issuing guidance on the use of AI in schools.

This has reshaped the technology race. “US-China AI model performance the gap has been effectively closed“Stanford researchers concluded in this year’s annual AI report:

For Hunter Roskom, a University of Wisconsin-Madison student who spent two years at Zhejiang University on exchange, technology competition is more about different approaches.

He said that in the USA, artificial intelligence is felt more behind the scenes. In China, he said, it is integrated into daily life.

“At least [U.S.] “The Midwest… you don’t really get exposure to technology like you do here,” he said. “It’s everywhere, even just walking the streets of Hangzhou, you don’t see that in the Midwest, so it’s definitely very eye-opening.”

And Trump’s summit with Xi this week will test whether those differences can translate into AI cooperation.

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