World Insight with Tian Wei

American AI executives are sounding the alarm over the breakneck race to advance AI. OpenAI's Sam Altman has joined Anthropic's Dario Amodei in urging a slowdown, calling on tech firms and governments to pace the frontier of AI. But opinion in the US is deeply split. The debate comes as China and the US — the world's two AI powers — have agreed to a track-one dialogue on AI, a deal struck when their presidents met in May. So what can we expect now?

This is our season of AI and Basic Sciences. Has AI surpassed the human intelligence? As that question dominates the headlines, I put it to Paddy Cosgrave, founder and CEO of Web Summit, one of the world's biggest technology conferences. His answer is less about the hype and more about what we need to do with the technology. How do we close the AI divide and what skills do people need to separate real progress from hype and rhetoric?

A theoretical physicist and pioneer of string theory, Brian Greene has spent decades exploring one of physics' biggest questions — can Einstein's gravity and quantum mechanics be brought together? But perhaps his most remarkable achievement is making such difficult ideas accessible to millions. Through books, television, documentaries and science festivals, he has turned the mysteries of the cosmos into stories people want to hear. We recently caught up with him in Beijing. We talked about science, AI — and perhaps the most important question of all: how do we make science matter to everyone?

As the AI race intensifies, so does the rhetoric. Washington has raised questions about Chinese open-source models — from “distillation” to national security. But users are looking beyond the headlines. What is fact? What is hype? And where does cooperation still fit? As China and the US move toward a promised Track One dialogue on AI governance, Track 1.5 and Track Two talks have been moving forward. The road ahead is uncertain. But cooperation remains an option. So, where do we go from here?

Chinese President Xi Jinping will attend the 18th BRICS Summit in New Delhi this weekend, at the invitation of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. "Building for Resilience, Innovation, Cooperation and Sustainability" is the theme of the upcoming summit. Since it was founded two decades ago, BRICS has grown from four members to eleven members, plus ten partner countries. Next year, China will assume the BRICS chairmanship. What can we expect from this year's BRICS Summit?