US proposes AI notification channel

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the US proposed a direct notification mechanism with China to report major AI-related national security incidents during talks in New York on Sunday.

Bessent meets Chinese Vice Premier

Bessent discussed the proposal with Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng. The talks came ahead of President Donald Trump's summit with Chinese leader Xi Jinping in Washington on Thursday.

Transparency between AI superpowers

Bessent said the proposal would create a new US-China AI dialogue focused on national security incidents. He called transparency between the world's two leading AI powers very important.

“We think that, just like with any cross-border activity, that moving from opaque to more transparency between the number one and the number two AI powers in the world is very important.”

China's cautious response

China stopped short of publicly endorsing the proposal. State news agency Xinhua described the talks as candid, in-depth and constructive, but did not mention the proposed notification mechanism.

Chip export controls stay separate

US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said export controls on advanced AI chips and semiconductor manufacturing equipment were not part of the AI discussions, keeping trade restrictions separate from safety talks.

Framework for non-sensitive goods

The talks advanced work on a separate framework to identify non-sensitive goods that could receive different treatment in future trade disputes between the US and China.

“There is a world where you have a relatively small subset of American and Chinese goods that can be traded in a balanced way, that are non-sensitive, that in the future, as trade actions come up, we can consider them as a class unto themselves.”