US-China seeking to establish new AI hotline to deal with national security AI threats

Washington/Beijing, Sep 22 (UNI) The US is seeking to establish a new "notification mechanism" with China that would allow mutual alerts in case an incident regarding artificial intelligence becomes potent enough to pose a threat to national security, even as President Donald Trump prepares to host Chinese President Xi Jinping in Washington this week.

The proposal, discussed during talks between US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng in New York on Sunday, would form part of a broader US-China dialogue on AI, with a focus on national security, transparency and "common goals and common threats", reports Axios. "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," Bessent told reporters after the talks. Trump's science and technology adviser Michael Kratsios said the "key thing" Washington wanted to discuss was "avoiding shared risks".

Exactly what type of incident would trigger a notification has not been publicly defined. The proposed channel has been compared with the US-Soviet "red phone" established during the Cold War to prevent dangerous misunderstandings from escalating into a wider confrontation. AI crisis channel has been described as a method to deal with incidents involving autonomous systems, cyberattacks or other failures where it may be unclear whether a government, a non-state actor or an AI system itself was responsible. "The US and China absolutely need to be able to share information with each other as threats evolve.

This seems like an obvious win for both sides," said Scott Singer, co-director of the China AI Initiative at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. He said an AI-specific channel could provide safeguards even while the two countries remain strategic rivals. Chinese academic Sun Chengdao, a professor at Tsinghua University, similarly said such a mechanism was becoming increasingly necessary. "The value of such a channel is not that it creates trust overnight, but that it can reduce the risk of misinterpretation when something goes wrong," Chengdao told Al Jazeera.

The proposal comes as Washington and Beijing continue competing over AI development and advanced technology. Trump has repeatedly rejected warnings about AI catastrophe and argued that the US must maintain its lead over China. Many leading AI companies share the urgency over the competition with Beijing, but some of their executives have also called for stronger safeguards as systems become more capable. China is facing its own competing concerns, as Beijing wants to avoid falling behind the US in the AI race while also wanting to maintain control over its indigenously developed systems which are proving harder to control as they become increasingly powerful.

Chinese authorities have focused more heavily on risks such as cyberattacks, malicious use and threats to critical infrastructure than on the kind of existential scenarios often discussed in Silicon Valley. That overlap has created a narrow area for cooperation. Bessent presented the proposed notification system as part of a broader US-China AI dialogue during this weekend's talks, ahead of Trump and Xi's meeting in Washington. Neither side has publicly set out the precise rules for the proposed mechanism. China has acknowledged that AI was discussed during the New York talks, but has not publicly confirmed whether it has accepted the proposed notification system. The idea also faces a broader problem, given that Washington and Beijing already have established crisis communication channels, but they have not always been used when tensions were at their highest.

Military contacts were suspended after then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited Taiwan in 2022, while Beijing declined a US request for a call after the US shot down a suspected Chinese surveillance balloon in 2023. Both governments are nevertheless preparing for broader discussions on AI, alongside trade, technology and other disputes at the Trump-Xi summit, with Washington and Beijing seeking to stabilise relations even as competition over advanced AI systems and semiconductors continues.

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