Ahead of Trump-Xi summit, a high level AI and trade talk between U.S. and China officials concluded in New York on Sunday where the two parties discussed setting up ‘US China AI Dialogue’ to keep a “notification mechanism” between the two countries on AI related safety incidents.

US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and US Trade Representative Ambassador Jamieson Greer had met Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng in New York on Sunday where the discussions covered AI, trade, critical minerals and Trump-Xi meet.

The meeting comes in the backdrop of highly anticipated US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping meet in Washington DC in September. The recent cybersafety and frontier AI models related incidents have led to calls for a global consensus on AI safety standards.

While China issued no details about the meet, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent later addressed reporters in New York, where he explained US China AI safety notification mechanism and stated that US and China discussed need for more transparency between “number one and number two AI powers of the world.”

“What the US has proposed that we have a notification mechanism between the two countries and we want a shared vision of common goals and common threats ..these notifications would be of whether there are incidents whether there has been something that rises up to national security level from AI. Because you know we think that just like any other cross-border activity, moving from opaque to more transparency between the number 1 and number 2 AI powers of the world,” said Bessent.

The recent incidents of frontier AI systems breaching third party organizations either autonomously or under training, have led to demands for “pacing the frontier AI” and bringing in stricter regulations and a licensing mechanism for AI labs and their LLMs.

The Trump-Xi summit is expected to discuss the need for a global safety mechanism on AI.

Also Read: US, China likely to hold first bilateral AI safety talks under Trump in September