Will Chinese AI companies slow down? A top House Democrat wants answers

As President Donald Trump prepares to meet tech and AI CEOs in Washington, Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) is calling for a treaty between the US and China to keep AI from wreaking havoc on the world. But wrangling leaders in both countries to take action could be a long shot.

In letters shared exclusively with The Verge, Khanna — the top Democrat on the House Select Committee on China and a possible presidential contender — asked a US intelligence agency and Chinese AI companies whether they would be prepared for an incident like OpenAI agents’ hack of Hugging Face this summer. The companies included DeepSeek, Alibaba, and Moonshot AI, all of which are pursuing high-level artificial intelligence.

American and Chinese interests “could not be more different on many issues,” Khanna writes in the letter to Director of National Intelligence Jay Clayton, “but on this discrete concern, it benefits neither country for humanity to lose control of our destiny.”

Khanna requests the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) assess how effectively the US might respond to an AI lab losing control of its bots — a scenario that’s become increasingly common in recent months. Alongside it, he asked the agency to evaluate the Chinese government’s approach to assessing catastrophic AI risks. The information, he says, will help Congress and eventually the White House craft an agreement with their Chinese counterparts.

The letters to DeepSeek, Alibaba, and Moonshot AI ask for documentation about their efforts to achieve “superintelligence” and recursive self-improvement (RSI) — a milestone where AI systems can improve on themselves. He asks about any efforts to implement safeguards and “kill switches” for the technology, as well as whether the companies would commit to inspections by a non-governmental agency if a treaty were struck. The companies and ODNI did not immediately respond to requests for comment from The Verge.

Khanna’s move follows a meeting between Chinese President Xi Jinping and US President Donald Trump at the White House last week. Both men, he says, fail to recognize the risk and urgency around AI. “I think it was constructive that Trump and Xi Jinping at least agreed to talk about AI and have ongoing dialogue about it, but it is not nearly adequate,” Khanna told The Verge in an interview on Monday.

He is also skeptical of a planned Tuesday meeting between the White House, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA), and several American tech executives. “I think it’s an effort to reassure the American people that these tech companies are going to be responsible, and it’s a branding exercise,” Khanna says. “But why should we trust companies that have a motive to maximize profits to be making the rules for what is safe? It’s not that they’re bad people, but would you trust the pharmaceutical executives to determine the rules for what drugs are safe?”

Khanna ultimately seeks a US-China treaty banning RSI and monitoring frontier AI labs, but he recognizes that’s unlikely to happen anytime soon. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) has similarly called for an AI treaty between the countries, though Republicans like House China Committee Chair John Moolenaar (R-MI) have been skeptical the Chinese government would keep its end of the bargain. In the meantime, Khanna says he’d like a working group with experts from both countries to suggest safety recommendations and methods for ensuring compliance.

But Trump and his allies have been resistant to most regulations or agreements. The morning of his meeting with Xi last week, Trump posted on Truth Social, “Super Intelligence (SI) will be a big topic of discussion, but I want to leave it exactly where it is. That is China’s position also.” Johnson said on Fox Business that he expected the conversation to revolve around striking “the right balance” of oversight without stifling innovation, warning against losing the AI race against China. Leading US AI companies, however, have called for the US to coordinate with China to slow down the pace of development

In the letter to the Chinese AI companies, Khanna acknowledges they’re unlikely to respond in full. He said they didn’t respond to requests in an earlier letter asking for a commitment to slow down AI development alongside OpenAI and Anthropic. Khanna tells The Verge his goal is to “shame them” and “spark a debate” among Chinese AI companies about safety. While he’s critical of US AI firms too, he says, “at least they’re engaging in safety conversations.”

Khanna remains confident the US will drive AI safety standards, in part because he believes many Chinese models are distilled from US models. And while world leaders may not recognize the threat, they’re “out of touch with the scientists and technologists in their own countries,” he says. “We need to get the technologists and the engineers who understand this really driving the debate, not CEOs who have a vested interest in making profits, and not politicians who lack a technical expertise and who are more concerned about power.”