BEIJING — China on Monday rejected demands by U.S. artificial intelligence executives urging companies to decelerate the advancement of cutting-edge AI technology.
“Fear mongering, confrontation, and competition will only disrupt the process of global AI governance,” Guo Jiakun, a spokesperson for China’s Foreign Ministry, said Monday, according to an English translation published by Reuters.
His remarks came in response to a question about U.S. CEOs, including Anthropic’s Dario Amodei, OpenAI’s Sam Altman, and Elon Musk, who have collectively called for the industry to slow its pace, citing the dangers posed by rapid technological advances.
China’s Minister of State Security, Chen Yixin, published an article on Sunday advocating for the acceleration of an AI security risk prevention and control system.
The field of AI has become “the main battleground for global technological competition and a new arena for strategic rivalry among major powers,” the minister said, adding that there was a need for “healthy and orderly” development of the technology.
Closing the AI gap
AI-related stocks fell on Monday, with SoftBank — one of the largest investors in OpenAI — declining 10% in Japan.
“Not building the technology deprives humanity of its benefits or simply places AI in the hands of authoritarian powers, while building it too fast is reckless,” Amodei wrote in an essay published Saturday.
He noted, however, that progress would be constrained by the lead that U.S. companies hold over “authoritarian regimes, chiefly the Chinese Communist Party.”
“If we slow down by more than this amount, then (unpaced) CCP-associated projects will pull ahead, creating significant national security risk,” Amodei said.
U.S. President Donald Trump also cautioned against losing any strategic edge in the AI arms race. During a trip to Ireland, he dismissed the AI leaders’ appeal, stating, “Look, we’re leading China in AI… and, frankly, I want to keep it that way because whoever wins AI, wins.”
At the weekend, President Xi Jinping said at the BRICS bloc summit in New Delhi that China will take the lead in fostering AI collaboration and development among developing countries.
Adoption of Chinese AI models is also gaining momentum among Western companies as their capabilities have improved.
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