US and China Reject AI Slowdown Calls Despite Expert Warnings

Despite urgent pleas from industry leaders and researchers to decelerate artificial intelligence development to avert catastrophic risks, the United States and China show no intention of slowing their pace. The two superpowers, locked in intense strategic rivalry, have each dismissed calls for a coordinated slowdown as the technology advances rapidly.

With President Donald Trump and President Xi Jinping preparing to meet in Washington for their third summit this year, expectations for meaningful cooperation on AI safety remain low. Analysts suggest that any measures agreed upon will likely fall short of the comprehensive halt advocated by many experts.

“The two countries host nearly all frontier labs and most of the models people download,” said Alvin Wang Graylin, a senior fellow at the Asia Society Policy Institute’s Center for China Analysis. He described mutual guardrails as “close to a precondition” for safe AI development, noting that “a safety regime covering one side’s models covers half the problem.”

Tensions are compounded by mutual distrust and differing perceptions of risk. President Trump has characterized AI safety fears as a “conspiracy,” rejecting the need for guardrails and emphasizing the necessity for the US to maintain technological superiority. During a recent address to the United Nations General Assembly, Trump stated Washington would oppose any “globalist scheme” to control AI, framing dominance in the sector as essential to preserving American global leadership.

China has adopted a more regulatory approach, recently releasing the third iteration of its security framework, yet it too has rebuffed calls for a development pause. Beijing has dismissed Silicon Valley’s existential risk concerns as “fearmongering,” focusing instead on practical threats such as cybersecurity and the preservation of the ruling Communist Party’s authority.

Chinese Minister of State Security Chen Yixin recently warned in an essay about “hostile forces” utilizing AI to spread political rumors and incite antagonism, thereby threatening national security. However, Sun Chenghao, a fellow at Tsinghua University’s Center for International Security and Strategy, noted that Chinese officials are also wary that “AI safety” rhetoric could serve as a pretext for restricting China’s access to advanced chips and markets.

“So the deepest obstacle is whether both sides can separate genuine safety cooperation from the wider technology competition,” Sun said. “If every safety discussion is linked to export controls or slowing China’s development, Beijing will naturally question the purpose of cooperation.”

Currently, the only proposals under discussion include a bilateral dialogue and a notification mechanism for reporting national security threats. While these steps are viewed positively, experts argue that an agreement on prohibited AI capabilities is necessary to avert the most severe dangers.

Opinions within the AI sector on regulation remain divided. CEOs from Anthropic and OpenAI have advocated for slower development and increased oversight, with some researchers, like University of Montreal assistant professor David Krueger, calling for an immediate, indefinite international moratorium on frontier AI development.

Conversely, figures such as Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg have downplayed the need for external control, highlighting the technology’s potential societal benefits. Among those most concerned, the concept of recursive self-improvement—where AI models learn to enhance themselves—is seen as a critical tipping point.

“The US and China must agree on AI capabilities red lines that will not be crossed. Most crucially, AI must never get powerful enough for recursive self-improvement,” said Otto Barten, director of the Netherlands-based Existential Risk Observatory.

Henry Gao, a trade law expert at Singapore Management University, identified a fundamental mismatch in how the two nations view risk. While US debates often focus on the possibility of superintelligent AI escaping human control, Chinese concerns are more geopolitical, driven by the fear of US dominance.

“That creates pressure to accelerate rather than slow development,” Gao said.

Some experts suggest the focus should shift from halting progress to managing existing risks. Rui Ma, a tech consultant and founder of Tech Buzz China, argued that thoughtful rules of engagement and continuous monitoring are more viable than a complete pause.

Jiang Tianjiao, an associate professor at Fudan University, called the upcoming Trump-Xi talks a “positive signal.” She emphasized that as the leading nations in AI, the US and China bear a responsibility to prevent the technology from spiraling out of control and should set a global example through cooperation.