US and China Agree to AI Dialogue; Summit Yields Limited Progress

The White House said the leaders had agreed to use the term "super intelligence" instead of "artificial intelligence." In a separate statement, China's Foreign Ministry said Beijing valued Washington's use of the new term. It said that as AI technology continues to advance, the two sides should step up exchanges and work toward consensus in line with new developments.

CNN reported that despite growing calls to prevent AI development from spiraling out of control, the Trump-Xi summit produced little substance, as many experts expected. During talks with Trump, Chinese leader Xi Jinping said the right thing to do on AI is to "draw on each other's strengths, not guard against each other," a reference to Beijing's concern about US containment, from existing tech export controls to potential AI restrictions. "The two sides can continue their dialogue on AI, exchange views on its risks and benefits, and jointly prevent the misuse and abuse of AI," Xi said. Beyond a formal dialogue and a bilateral communication channel, both of which were discussed before the two leaders' summit, the meeting yielded little progress on AI, CNN reported, underscoring entrenched mutual mistrust.

George Chen, chair of digital practice at The Asia Group consultancy, said low levels of trust mean cooperation between the two superpowers remains limited. "Beijing continues to believe Washington seeks to contain China's rise in AI and other emerging technologies, a perception that will shape the pace and scope of future engagement for the two countries on AI," he said.

CNN also pointed out that while China trails the US in frontier AI models, it is rapidly narrowing the technology gap while championing a more open ecosystem centered on accessibility and lower cost. In July, Xi launched the World Artificial Intelligence Cooperation Organization, a rival grouping to the Pax Silica alliance that Trump formed last year to reduce reliance on China for AI supply chains. More than two dozen countries and the European Union signed up to Trump's Pax Silica, while Xi has recruited 29 countries, including Russia, Indonesia and Pakistan, to his alternative vision of open models, which allow users to freely download, customize and run without paying hefty fees to American firms like Anthropic and OpenAI.

Eric Olander, editor in chief of The China-Global South Project, a research agency, said that for developers in the Global South, an inexpensive Chinese model from DeepSeek or Moonshot may be more useful than a slightly more capable system requiring an expensive subscription and access to a foreign cloud provider.

China's embrace of open systems has not always been a top-down strategy by Beijing, according to CNN. Restrictions on access to the most advanced chips because of US export controls, coupled with smaller capital markets, have pushed Chinese developers toward open models as a way to compete with leading US proprietary systems. That shift has proved effective. In a year, Chinese models' global usage skyrocketed from less than 15% to over 54% last week, led by DeepSeek, according to AI leaderboard data by OpenRouter, a marketplace for models. Even American firms, from Airbnb and DoorDash to Shopify, have embraced Chinese models, tapping into the advantages of open systems, including lower costs and greater flexibility for customization.

CNN added insight from Alex Colville, an analyst focusing on tech and security at the government-backed Australian Strategic Policy Institute. "The more capable Chinese models become, the less likely it is Beijing may leave them unrestricted," Colville said.