Why are US AI giants calling for ‘Pacing The Frontier’, and why is China calling it a ‘Cold War tactic’? We ask the experts

Following the recent resignation of one of Anthropic’s leading researchers, multiple AI CEOs have suddenly begun calling for a slowdown in the development of AI technology to allow regulations and governance on the technology to catch up.

Speaking to the BBC after his resignation, Jacob Coxon warned, “I believe that if we don't slow down at the current rate of progress, there is a strong chance that we could all die in the immediate future.” Following this, Anthropic head Dario Amodei, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, and Grok founder Elon Musk have all apparently aligned in their calls for development to slow down.

But there are some tricky waters to navigate - particularly around President Trump, China, and what guardrails should be put into place.

What are AI heads saying? Over the weekend, Amodei posted an essay on “why the AI industry should slow down”.

In it, he said, “I believe that if slowing down bought us even an extra year or two before models reach critical levels of capability, and we used that time to advance alignment, we could greatly reduce the risk that something goes seriously wrong.” We Must Pace the Frontier: I’ve written a new essay on why the AI industry should slow down, with a three-part plan for doing so.Anthropic is unilaterally committing to the first of these steps.

We’ll provide third-party evaluators with permanent, employee-level access to our systems, so that they can verify adherence to our safety measures, report on incidents, and assess models’ alignment during training.You can read the full post here: https://t.co/OGyPb7yaYt September 12, 2026 Within the essay, Amodei outlined how AI could be ‘paced’ within the US, and globally, alongside a recommendation that AI companies put ‘evaluator’ teams into place to ensure AI models stay aligned to their tasks.

Elon Musk replied to Amodei’s social media post, stating that the Anthropic head was “right”.

Sam Altman told Fortune the regulations and standards for AI further were “not at a place” to continue progressing AI development. (Image credit: Future) Got an opinion for us? Here’s how you can submit your perspective But not everyone is convinced.

US President Donald Trump has said that slowing down AI development is non-negotiable, as it would allow China to rapidly catch up to US AI capabilities.

He told reporters that the US is “leading China on AI... and, frankly, I want to keep it that way,” adding that “whoever wins AI, wins”.

Trump also said that “very negative forces” were behind the growing opposition to AI, and said that fears were being stoked by “that won’t happen”.

China also isn’t convinced by what the AI giants are saying.