On the evening of the 24th, U.S. President Trump held a state dinner for Chinese President Xi Jinping at the White House, and U.S. technology giants took important seats at the main table. Analysts pointed out that this seating arrangement highlights that as tensions between the United States and China continue, technological issues such as artificial intelligence (AI) and chips have become increasingly important in the relationship between the two countries.
Excluding the couples of the heads of state of the United States and China, there were 130 guests at this state banquet, with senior executives from many American technology companies in attendance. In contrast, there were no senior executives from Chinese technology companies. Among the top executives from the U.S. technology industry who attended, Huida CEO Jen-Hsun Huang, Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) CEO Lisa Su, Apple Executive Chairman Tim Cook and Tesla CEO Elon Musk sat at the main table with the Trumps, Xi Jinping and his wife.
South China Morning Post reported that if the guests at the main table can reveal any signal, it is that Washington now views its relationship with Beijing through the lens of technology. The total net worth of Huang Jen-Hsun and four other people exceeds US$1 trillion, and the total market value of the companies they represent as of the close of trading on the 24th also exceeds US$12 trillion. Analysts pointed out that the state banquet seating arrangement highlights that the technology giants that have driven the booming development of global AI infrastructure are pushing the two economic giants closer.
Wang Shengyu (transliteration), a research assistant at the China Analysis Center of the Asia Social Policy Institute (ASPI) in Washington, pointed out that the arrangement of the main table reflects the increasing importance of AI infrastructure as a potential gathering force in U.S.-China relations; these AI supply chain companies may be among the U.S. business community who support expanding contacts with China, and the four companies on the main table all have significant exposure to the Chinese market. He pointed out that the absence of Chinese entrepreneurs is in stark contrast to the important seats occupied by the four major U.S. technology giants. It also highlights which party is currently promoting the establishment of closer business and investment relations between the United States and China.
Among the 39 American business leaders who attended the state banquet, 15 were from the technology industry, making it the largest industrial group. In addition to the four people at the main table, they also included Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook parent company Meta, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, Dell CEO Michael Dell, and the heads of major U.S. chip supply chain companies Qualcomm and Micron Technology.
One thing that is striking is that no representative from Anthropic, the company that developed the Claude artificial intelligence model, was present at the state banquet. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei has been a vocal critic of Beijing and has advocated for the United States to impose strict export controls on China's AI industry. In contrast, although OpenAI currently has no operating base in China, the company's CEO Sam Altman and President Greg Brockman were both invited to attend.
