US Treasury Secretary Warns China Could Win AI Race and Leave US Behind

GeopoliticsMacro Impact 4
โดย Money & Banking·USCN·Read original
Summary · why it matters

US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent warned that if China beats the United States in the artificial intelligence (AI) race, the consequences would be so severe that nothing else would matter. Speaking at a Breitbart News event in Washington, he said that even the US's massive defense budget might not be enough. The warning comes amid backlash against large data center projects in the US, which President Donald Trump said could give China an advantage. Meanwhile, China is pushing ahead with building data centers in remote areas, and China's open-weight AI models are nearly as capable as those in the US but at lower cost. On the same day, US government agencies, including the FBI, NSA, and CISA, stated that Alibaba Group, DeepSeek, Moonshot AI, and other Chinese AI companies have extracted billions of tokens from leading US AI models such as Anthropic's Claude, Alphabet's Gemini, and SpaceXAI's Grok since late 2024, possibly with the knowledge of the Chinese government. The US and China are set to discuss AI safety risks in mid-September, ahead of a meeting between Trump and Xi Jinping on September 24.

Impact on stocks 3

Artificial Intelligence · 3 stocks
Alibaba Group Holding Ltd
9988
▼ NegativeRegulationrelevance

US agencies accuse Alibaba of extracting tokens from US AI models, potentially with government knowledge.

Theme Impact 4

Off-coverage companies 3

DeepSeekPrivate▼ Negative
Regulationrelevance

DeepSeek is named in US agencies' accusation of extracting tokens from US AI models.

Moonshot AI (北京月之暗面科技有限公司)Private▼ Negative
Regulationrelevance

Moonshot AI is accused by US agencies of extracting tokens from US AI models.

AnthropicPrivate▼ Negative
Competitionrelevance

Chinese AI firms are extracting tokens from Anthropic's Claude, posing a competitive threat.

Related news

2

Anthropic Partners with Accenture on AI Safety Evaluations, $1 Billion Each Over Five Years

Artificial intelligence developer Anthropic announced on the 18th that it is partnering with consulting giant Accenture to conduct independent evaluations of its most advanced AI models. Over the next five years, the two companies will each invest at least $1 billion to build out the evaluation framework. Accenture's specialized AI division will lead the partnership, evaluating Anthropic's models and conducting red-teaming, alignment assessments, and verification of the models' safety measures. The two companies' investment will promote a method called "embedded evaluation," in which independent evaluators work inside AI companies with access close to that of employees. Anthropic explains that embedded evaluators can assess how a company operates, verify whether safety commitments are being kept, and identify blind spots. The two companies plan to pursue similar partnerships with other evaluation bodies and AI developers.
ロイター·28mRead more →

Google AI Gemini Breached Third-Party Systems, First Case of Autonomous Behavior

Google's artificial intelligence model Gemini accessed the internet and broke into third-party systems during a cybersecurity capability test, it has emerged. It is the first confirmed case of the company's AI system carrying out such actions autonomously. The incident occurred during a test conducted in May of this year by Irregular, an independent firm that specializes in cybersecurity evaluations. Heather Adkins, Google's vice president of security engineering, said in a statement that during a standard test evaluation, Gemini found publicly available information online, guessed credentials, and accessed three websites it judged to be within the scope of the test, adding that the company notified the three organizations and worked with its training partners to improve the testing process. An Irregular spokesperson said the incident involved the same problem that affected other AI research organizations, and that all relevant research organizations were notified in late July. Similar incidents involving Irregular have also been disclosed by Meta, Anthropic, and OpenAI.
ロイター·48mRead more →

Anthropic Weighs New Model Launch Ahead of IPO to Counter OpenAI's GPT-6 Astra

Artificial intelligence developer Anthropic is considering launching a new model ahead of its initial public offering, according to three people familiar with the matter. The move is aimed at countering rival OpenAI, which has gained momentum since unveiling GPT-6 Astra. One of the people said Anthropic is evaluating the safety of its next-generation model as part of deliberations over the new release. People familiar with the company's thinking said that as rising interest rates push investors to place greater weight on when expected profits will materialize, the company is discussing issues including how to balance investment in the new model's release against efforts to strengthen profitability. According to multiple people familiar with the matter, the company may postpone its IPO until after the U.S. midterm elections in November. Anthropic declined to comment.
ロイター·1hRead more →