Trump, AI CEOs sign voluntary safety pact, back data centre expansion
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WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump on Tuesday (Sep 29) said tech executives agreed to establish voluntary standards for AI and reiterated his support for rapid expansion of data centres, as concerns mount over AI safety and the industry's growing footprint in communities.
Trump made the comments after meeting with tech executives at the White House. The companies agreed to work with "independent auditors" to assess whether AI systems are working as their designers intended, according to a copy of the agreement posted by Trump on his social media platform.
The companies also said they would work to ensure their AI tools do not "hack or access technical systems in unintended ways".
The administration faces increasing scrutiny over risks posed by advanced AI, after OpenAI and Anthropic reported their AI agents had gone rogue and hacked into other companies' systems.
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Data centres, which provide the computing power to train and run AI models, have drawn opposition in communities nationwide over concerns about electricity demand, utility costs and other local impacts.
The backlash poses a political challenge for Republicans heading into the US midterm elections on Nov 3.
"It's almost like a constitution, in a way," Trump said, referring to the agreement between the companies.
"And the biggest people in the world signed that, and I signed it as president. And it really is a form of protection."
What began as a closed-door lunch with technology executives spilt into public view when Trump joined House Speaker Mike Johnson and a lineup of CEOs on the White House driveway, an area rarely used by the president to speak to journalists.
He took questions from reporters for about 30 minutes on AI safety and other topics with the CEOs standing behind him.
The unusual scene came as pressure has mounted on the administration to address the risks and rapid spread of AI, and underscored the alliance Trump has cultivated with leaders of the tech industry.
Executives at the meeting included OpenAI's Greg Brockman, Anthropic's Dario Amodei, Meta's Mark Zuckerberg, Google's Sundar Pichai and Nvidia's Jensen Huang.
Zuckerberg, pulled forward from the crowd of billionaire executives by Trump to speak, said the companies agreed to develop "robust internal controls" for their AI systems.
Trump said he is considering setting up a 10-person board to police the safety of AI tools. He did not specify potential members of that group. He added he would soon name a new official to lead White House policies on AI.
DOUBLES DOWN ON DATA CENTRES
Asked whether he was concerned that his support for data centres could hurt Republicans in November, Trump said tech companies would work to make communities "happy" about the construction of data centres.
"These big, powerful, very rich, very smart companies are going to be making massive contributions to communities," Trump later told reporters gathered on the White House driveway, surrounded by the company executives.
But the companies have come under fire for not doing enough to make AI safer. A nationwide Reuters/Ipsos poll from Sep 17 to Sep 20 shows some 73 per cent of respondents worry that AI companies haven't done enough to prevent AI from causing serious harm to society, and 55 per cent of people said it would be good to slow AI development.
AI company executives and investors were among the largest individual donors in 2025 to MAGA Inc, a political action committee aligned with the president. OpenAI's Brockman and his wife, Anna Brockman, gave a combined US$25 million to the committee in 2025, according to Federal Election Commission records.
Trump met with the CEOs the same day his aides announced a new AI tool that they said will make it easier for the public to use government services.
Silicon Valley executives attended an event launching the new tool, including Meta's Dina Powell McCormick and Sequoia Capital partner Shaun Maguire. Airbnb co-founder Joe Gebbia led the design of the new tool. Silicon Valley companies Google, SpaceX, Meta and 8VC were listed in the launch event's program as sponsors.
Trump at the launch event said the AI tool could not "in theory, be hacked into" by bad actors. He did not provide evidence.
Trump on Tuesday also directed government agencies to use the words "super intelligence" instead of "artificial intelligence" when referring to the technology.
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