China and US competing for AI dominance but share safety concerns

US President Donald Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping, leaders of rival nations in a race to dominate artificial intelligence, are expected to meet this week against a backdrop of rising concerns about the threats rogue AI could pose to humanity.

The hopes for finding common ground on concerns around global AI safety are clouded by competition between the two countries. As China narrows the technology gap with the US, each country has expressed concern over how AI in the other’s hands could hurt them .

“The US-China conversation on AI is being caught in the ups and downs in the broader US-China relationship,” said Scott Singer, co-director of the China AI Initiative at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

On Sunday US treasury secretary Scott Bessent said after talks in New York with Chinese vice premier He Lifeng ahead of the meeting between Trump and Xi that the two countries discussed the setting up of a mechanism on AI dialogue and proposed a new “notification mechanism” for AI incidents that could impact national security.

Here is a look at some topics that may come up for discussion around AI:

The agenda could focus on AI risks that could harm both countries, such as AI-enabled cyberattacks, biological misuse, major model failures or loss of human control, said Sun Chenghao, a senior fellow at the Centre for International Security and Strategy at Tsinghua University in Beijing. In that case, “there is still meaningful room for co-operation”, Sun said.

“It would be a mistake to dismiss the entire safety debate as geopolitical competition,” Sun said. “China itself is paying growing attention to loss of control risks, malicious use, cyberthreats and the safety of AI agents.”

Bessent said after his meeting with He the US proposed a notification mechanism between the US and China, such as when there are incidents that rise up to the national security level from AI. “We want a shared vision of common goals and common threats,” he told reporters.

Michael Kratsios, Trump’s science and technology adviser, told Fox News on Sunday it’s important to have conversations with China about AI . “The key thing we want to talk to them about is avoiding shared risks, and that’s something I think we can have a fruitful conversation about,” Kratsios said.

Both governments are concerned about how AI could be used to attack critical infrastructure. In China, AI governance documents identify finance, electricity, telecommunications and transportation as areas potentially exposed to frontier-AI risks, Sun said.

The Chinese side has shown real interest in discussing issues such as AI and cyber-incident information sharing with US experts, said Samm Sacks, a senior fellow at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies’ Institute for America, China and the Future of Global Affairs.

If the two countries can discuss how to report and communicate in the event of an AI-related emergency, said Xiao Qian, vice dean of the Institute for AI International Governance at Tsinghua University, “it can help the two countries to build technical confidence over time”.

Trump has repeatedly said “whoever wins AI, wins”.