Why China's Involvement in the U.K. AI Safety Summit Was So Significant

As delegates from around the world and leaders from the tech industry gathered in the U.K. for the first ever AI Safety Summit, there appeared to be harmony between officials of historical rivals China and the U.S. On Wednesday, U.S. Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo and Chinese Vice Minister of Science and Technology Wu Zhaohui shared a stage at the opening plenary of the U.K. AI Safety Summit. Later that day, the U.S. and China were two of 29 countries to sign the Bletchley Declaration, which affirmed the risks AI poses and commits to international cooperation to identify and mitigate those risks, a crucial initial step to establishing regulation in the future. But simmering beneath these shows of cooperation is an undercurrent of increasing tension between the two AI superpowers. Tech supremacy has been a hallmark of the tensions between the U.S. and China in recent years. In 2017, on the heels of an impressive breakthrough in artificial intelligence by Google Deepmind, China made AI progress a priority with its New Generation AI Development Plan.