OpenAI CEO Sam Altman will attend state dinner for Trump-Xi summit in Washington

TechPublished Wed, Sep 16 20265:32 PM EDTUpdated 12 Min AgoKey PointsOpenAI CEO Sam Altman plans to attend President Donald Trump's state dinner for Chinese President Xi Jinping's visit to Washington next week, CNBC has learned.The event comes as policymakers and tech leaders debate how to regulate AI following warnings about safety and calls for a slowdownAI will likely be a major talking point during Trump and Xi's meeting.US President Donald Trump (R) and Open AI CEO Sam Altman (L) react during a working lunch meeting of G7 members, partner countries, and artificial intelligence business leaders as part of the G7 summit, in Evian, eastern France, on June 17, 2026.Julia Demaree Nikhinson | Afp | Getty ImagesOpenAI CEO Sam Altman is set to attend President Donald Trump's state dinner for Chinese President Xi Jinping's visit to Washington next week, CNBC has learned.Altman's expected appearance comes as a heated battle over artificial intelligence regulation unfolds in Washington and Silicon Valley after researchers warned of the risks to humanity and Anthropic's Dario Amodei called for a slowdown in frontier model development.The hot- button debate has paired unlikely AI lab rivals Altman and Amodei, along with Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, against Trump and big tech leaders such as Nvidia's Jensen Huang and Meta Platforms CEO Mark Zuckerberg.AI will likely be a major topic of discussion when Trump and the Chinese president convene, especially as Chinese open-weight models advance in capabilities and close the gap with U.S. frontier labs.Nvidia's Huang is also attending the state dinner, CNBC reported earlier this week."President Trump has invited several great American business leaders to his dinner with President Xi because he will always prioritize making good deals for our country," a White House official said in a statement Wednesday.— CNBC's Ashley Capoot contributed to this articleRead more CNBC tech newsTwo camps have emerged in the debate over AI safety and regulationAWS says it can't restore service to Bahrain, UAE facilities 6 months after Iran strikesMusk urges top AI labs, Chinese companies to test each other's models amid calls for slowdownWill AI really destroy humanity? Pioneers who created the tech weigh in