特朗普与中方均反对放缓AI发展，中美博弈加剧

President Trump is dismissing calls by AI leaders to slow the development of such frontier technology. The US president dialed in to a live event for the All In podcast with Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, where he calls such AI fears a hoax. They're just playing right into the hands of a lot of people that don't want to see it happen, and that could be political people. It could also be China, and we're not going to let that happen.

It's a, it's a hoax. Now, as we were pointing out, China has also weighed in on this debate. A foreign ministry spokesperson criticized the calls from U.S. tech leaders, calling it AI fear mongering. The development of artificial intelligence is crucial to the well-being of all humanity, and all parties should work together to promote an open and inclusive development of AI for good and for all. Fear mongering, confrontation and vicious competition will only disrupt the process of global AI governance, which serves no one's interest.

All right, we brought the entire team in for the latest on how Washington and Beijing are responding. We're joined by our Bloomberg Artificial Intelligence and Venture Capital editor, Samantha Altman. And here on set with us in Hong Kong is China Economy and Government reporter Colum Murply. Samantha, let me let me start with you. You guys had a busy day there. Just get us up to speed. What is top of mind right now as we wake up here in Asia Pacific?

What do we need to know? I think it's just an interesting moment because you have everyone from the leaders of the AI labs to an increasingly large cohort of bi partisan politicians, who are starting to say, hey, maybe we need to pace this technology to some degree. And then you have President Trump pushing back really hard against that. Especially as we head into midterm elections here in the United States. It'll be interesting to see how all that plays out.

Because there's a lot of tension surrounding the issue. Yeah. I mean, when the president calls you on your phone, you got to put him on speaker, right when you're on stage, like Jensen Huang. Samantha, which is quite a rare moment to see. But talk about this clash that you're seeing with the president and these AI labs, where I mean, how far do you think then these safeguarding, you know, limitations and the like of really, you know, controlling the pace of AI development is going to really go if, in fact, the president is objecting to it.

You know, it'll be interesting to see it play out. I think that the labs, to some degree, want the government to provide regulation, because it will absolve them of certain things. I think that there's just a resistance from the U.S. government to do that. Because I think the success of these expected IPOs, whether they come at the end of the year or next year, matter a lot for the economy as well as for all the chip makers.

Okay. You know, let me bring in, is has has graced us with perfection right now. So China is releasing the five year plan for the electronics industry. And you know, within this, it does seem like we are looking at targeting ¥30 trillion in electronics revenue in 2030. That's according to Xinhua. They'll also be within this advancing chips, computing and consumer electronics against what we understand to be their longer term AI strategy.

Put into context the sort of pushback we heard from the Foreign Ministry yesterday. Right. So, I mean, I think one of the things we have to bear in mind is like where the original statements were coming from, they were coming from US companies, US competitors. So it's not surprising that the first reaction is definitely to push back and say, we're not going to listen to you guys because not only are you our competitors, but we're lagging behind and we need to catch up.

But I think to say that the Chinese are outright sort of like dismissing concerns over AI safety would be obviously overstating it. There are lots of areas where China has recognized AI safety as a priority, and there are some areas that overlap with the US as well. So I think, you know, you asked earlier about front of my in front of mind right now is the uh, see Trump uh, summit coming up, uh, in less than two weeks, of which I was billed to be an important components.

So, yes, this recent sort of exchange and can push back, complicates that a little bit. But at the same time, um, we can still hope for some sort of, I don't want to say agreement, but some sort of, like, at least mutual recognition that AI safety is a concern that needs to be addressed. Now to what degree they will address that in the specifics? Yeah, obviously is uh, it remains to be seen. But I would say, the expectations are, you know, quite low.

But the signaling impacts of that meeting, uh, could be quite important. Yeah. There seems to be a lot of debate about if these AI labs really slow the pace of frontier tech in the U.S., that China can somehow catch up or or just China. Actually, they can't catch up as much because they do need some of these frontier models for their distillation to train their own models and such. I mean, what other people that you're talking to saying about what China and how they could potentially even benefit?

Yeah. I mean, there's obviously a lot of bravado from certain sectors in China, the developer saying, you know, we're obviously not going to slow down and we're behind and we have to catch up. In terms of the practicalities, I mean, I think, you know, we have the examples with the chip controls and in some ways they actually sort of promote our push, encourage even more determination from the Chinese side. So I wouldn't underestimate that potential to sort of have a sort of unexpected knock on effect.

But obviously, you know, there is this dependency, if you will, and any slowdown will probably have a major knock on effect on I development here. But I think, you know, obviously at the moment trying to rally, sort of against that and say, you know, you know, be our guest. Go ahead. But we're still not going to, you know, slow down our efforts to catch up.