China tells its AI leaders to keep away from U.S. journey over safety issues: report

Chinese language authorities are instructing the nation’s prime synthetic intelligence entrepreneurs and researchers to keep away from journey to america, the Wall Road Journal reported on Friday (February 28, 2025) citing folks accustomed to the matter.

Additionally learn:Has China achieved AI breakthrough with DeepSeek? 

The authorities are involved that Chinese language AI specialists touring overseas may disclose confidential details about the nation’s progress, the newspaper stated.

Authorities additionally worry that executives might be detained and used as a bargaining chip in U.S.-China negotiations, the Journal stated, drawing parallels to the detention of a Huawei govt in Canada at Washington’s request in the course of the first Trump administration.

The White Home and China’s State Council Data Workplace didn’t instantly reply to requests from Reuters for remark.

Executives at main Chinese language corporations in AI and different strategically delicate industries, corresponding to robotics, are being discouraged from touring to the U.S. and its allies except completely obligatory, the Journal report stated.

Executives who select to journey are instructed to report their plans earlier than leaving and, upon returning, to temporary authorities on what they did and whom they met, the report stated.

Chinese language AI startup DeepSeek founder Liang Wenfeng declined an invite to attend an AI summit in Paris in February, in keeping with the report. One other founding father of a significant Chinese language AI startup canceled a deliberate U.S. journey final 12 months following directions from Beijing, the Journal added.

U.S. and China are locked in a world AI race, with DeepSeek not too long ago launching AI fashions that it claims rival or surpass U.S. business leaders like OpenAI and Google, at considerably decrease price.

In February, President Xi Jinping held a uncommon assembly with a number of the greatest names in China’s know-how sector, urging them to “present their expertise” and be assured within the energy of China’s mannequin and market. (Reporting by Nilutpal Timsina in Bengaluru; Enhancing by William Mallard and Raju Gopalakrishnan)