BREAKING:
Trump's state dinner for Xi Jinping, September 24, just turned into an AI power summit.
Confirmed from the US side: Sam Altman, Jensen Huang, Tim Cook, Cristiano Amon, Jamie Dimon, Jane Fraser.
China accepted the invitation. Immediately asked for more than half of the roughly 100 seats.
For its own business delegation accompanying Xi.
A separate sidelines meeting, with Meta, Anthropic, Google, and xAI, is being discussed per CNN. Nothing finalized yet.
This lands days after Trump called AI safety warnings a "HOAX" and a "SICK conspiracy" on social media.
Huang's seat is notable for a specific reason.
He, Zuckerberg, and Musk reportedly lobbied Trump against a Demis Hassabis-backed AI regulator proposal. Days before this dinner was confirmed.
Chinese customs has separately blocked shipments of Nvidia's H200 chips into China.
Suppliers have paused production on components tied to that blockage.
Chip access. Export controls. AI safety standards. All getting lobbied in the same room, over dinner, not in a hearing room.
Altman has previously floated a US-China AI safety agreement as Nobel-worthy.
Huang has pushed the opposite. Full-speed development, no slowdown for China's sake.
Both men sit at the same table September 24.
The AI race just became a seating chart.