US and China Agree to AI Communication Channel After Summit

The Trump-Xi Washington summit concluded with the US and China agreeing to establish a dedicated communication channel for AI incidents, announced by the White House following the meeting. AI and chip policy received far less attention at the summit than anticipated: US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer stated explicitly that there were no discussions of chip export controls, and post-summit remarks indicated discussions were largely limited to collaboration on shared AI safety standards. China announced a bilateral AI dialogue as a post-summit outcome but with no stated timeframe; the US issued no similar statement. Jensen Huang of Nvidia joined the presidential delegation despite an ongoing impasse over advanced H200 chip sales to China. The summit agenda also covered trade and Taiwan, and the two sides extended their trade truce through January 10. Neither the US nor China appears willing to slow its AI development. A structural tension remains unresolved: both countries seek superior commercial AI models for strategic competition while also fearing those models could pose unmanageable security threats, and three major US AI developers have already reported suffering distillation attacks.