Liu Shengyu, a DeepSeek engineer behind the company’s V4.1 models, said he did not support calls by U.S. industry leaders Anthropic or OpenAI to “pace” AI development amid safety concerns and called for making cutting-edge AI “open and affordable” by developing open-source models. “I especially don’t want Anthropic to master the most advanced artificial intelligence or AGI,” he wrote in a social media post. AGI refers to AI systems that match or surpass human-level intelligence. Liu compared the prospect of Anthropic controlling the most advanced AI to Adolf Hitler and Nazi Germany acquiring nuclear weapons before the Allies, noting that a belief in the fostering of inclusive and open-source AI was among the reasons Liu had chosen to remain at DeepSeek.
Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei called on frontier AI companies to “pace” development, warning that capabilities were advancing faster than safeguards. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and xAI founder Elon Musk have since backed his calls to slow the race. But other Chinese observers have similarly questioned the motives behind calls to slow AI development. The Dongbuyaqiao Research Institute, an independent Chinese research platform, said Amodei’s comments could have been “an attempt to gain greater control over industry rules before they are fully established”. Amodei also singled out China, arguing that a Chinese lead in AI would pose a “grave danger” to the United States and the world. He called on the U.S. to maintain restrictions on exports of advanced chips and chipmaking equipment to China. Despite the safety warnings, Anthropic was still expected to go public later this year, with a targeted valuation of around USD2 trillion.
The remarks drew a sharp response from Beijing. China’s Foreign Ministry Spokesman Guo Jiakun, said at a regular news briefing that “fear mongering, confrontation and vicious competition will only hamper efforts towards sound global AI governance”. Du Hengfeng, Commentator for National Business Daily, a major Chinese financial newspaper, wrote that “direct commercial returns are the deeper motivation” behind the U.S. tech companies’ calls for safety and alignment.
The heated rhetoric underscores an intensifying dispute over how the world’s most powerful AI systems should be developed and who gets to set the rules governing them. A commentary in the Global Times described Amodei’s proposals as a “quiet AI cold war”, arguing that they were aimed at preserving America’s technological lead while excluding China from global AI governance. U.S. President Donald Trump also dismissed calls for an industry-wide slowdown, arguing that restraining American AI development could hand an advantage to China. “AI taking over the World, destroying Humanity, and all other things bad, is a HOAX,” Trump said in social media posts, as reported by the South China Morning Post.
The China Daily added that China’s Minister of State Security Chen Yixin, recently called for the swift establishment of a comprehensive system to prevent and control risks related to artificial intelligence to ensure the technology’s healthy and orderly development, as AI becomes a key area of global technological competition. Chen said AI has become a new strategic battleground among major powers and stressed the need to promote its development while strengthening security measures and governance. In an article in a magazine published by the Cyberspace Administration of China, Minister Chen described AI as a driving force behind a new wave of technological revolution and industrial transformation, saying it is rapidly being integrated into all aspects of society and reshaping global economies, technological innovation and social governance. At the same time, he called for a clear understanding of the risks and challenges brought on by the rapid development of AI and said efforts must continue to ensure security is maintained.
Chen said AI is having an impact not only on political and national security, but also on cybersecurity, espionage, data protection, technological development, social governance and military affairs. As of June, more than 500 million people in China had used AI products, which are being adopted rapidly. He said hostile forces and malicious actors are taking advantage of generative AI to spread political rumors, harmful information and stir up conflicts. “This poses a direct threat to China’s political, institutional and ideological security,” he said. It is also becoming easier and cheaper to launch cyberattacks that pose serious risks to China’s critical information infrastructure, he added.
But he also pointed out that restrictions imposed by some countries on access to advanced technologies and equipment in the name of national security have hindered technological innovation and created additional challenges for the global AI industry and supply chains. Meanwhile, the rapid development of AI is outpacing existing laws, ethical standards and governance mechanisms, making effective regulation more difficult. AI is also changing the nature of warfare, Minister Chen added, with algorithms increasingly helping determine the accuracy and effectiveness of strikes and potentially influencing the outcome of battles.
