BRICS summit calls for Middle East peace while regional tensions rise and AI leaders warn of risks

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Hello, this is Hui Jie writing to you from Singapore. Welcome to another edition of CNBC's Daily Open.

Statements from the BRICS summit over the weekend had a common thread: Nations want peace in the Middle East.

But developments in the region could hardly be further from peaceful. The East-West pipeline in Saudi Arabia was closed after drones launched from Iraq damaged it, disrupting a crucial relief pathway for crude exports.

Meanwhile in tech, OpenAI has ruled out an IPO this year as concerns grow about the safety of increasingly powerful AI systems.

What you need to know today

The BRICS summit over the weekend saw many nations come together to express their hopes for peace.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday said that "peace and tranquility" in the border areas is essential for developing bilateral relations with its neighbor China.

Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping also called separately for peace in the Middle East. But the rhetoric doesn't seem to be meeting reality.

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said his country will not surrender in the U.S. Iran war, as negotiations between the U.S. and Tehran show no signs of resuming.

Ebrahim Azizi, head of the Iranian parliament's national security committee, said in a post on X that there will be "No negotiations. Until Iran's terms are met, talks are futile."

A vessel was struck in the Strait of Hormuz on Sunday, according to the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations Centre.

More critically, Saudi Arabia has shut down its East-West pipeline, after drones launched from Iraq damaged the key oil export channel.

The Saudi pipeline, which can carry 7 million barrels per day, has played a key role in easing the severe oil supply disruption triggered by the Iran war.

In fact, the pipeline has played a more important role in stabilizing oil markets than the massive release of strategic reserves led by the U.S., Saudi Aramco CEO Amin Nasser said on the company's August earnings call.

For more coverage on the energy markets, U.S. Deputy Energy Secretary James Danly joins CNBC's "Access Middle East" at 12.30 p.m. Singapore time.

AI leaders reach for the brakes

The Middle East is not the only arena in which leaders are asking for restraint. The AI industry wants to pump the brakes.

Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei had published a Saturday essay calling for the AI companies to slow how quickly they improve their most advanced models, a move that followed stark warnings from industry researchers last week about the technology's growing potential to cause catastrophic harm.

However, Amodei later said that the "toughest dilemma" is what happens if adversarial nations, namely China, choose not to do the same.

"I think that's going to be very difficult because the incentives to pull ahead and the military advantage that you get from that are so large. And honestly, I don't know if it's possible, but we should try."

Last week, Anthropic researcher Jacob Coxon announced he quit his job out of concern that the company and its chief rival, OpenAI, are "gambling with our lives."

Meanwhile, China's Xi called for a "consensus-based global AI governance framework" at BRICS and said China will help establish a BRICS AI open-source community.

— Lim Hui Jie

And finally...

OpenAI rules out IPO this year as Altman, Musk & Amodei warn AI is moving too fast

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman now says his company will not go public this year, citing growing concerns about AI safety.

In an interview with Fortune published Saturday, Altman said that an IPO now would be "ill-advised."

The decision pushes one of the most anticipated IPOs in history until at least 2027 and gives the clearest sign yet that mounting concerns about increasingly powerful AI are beginning to reshape the industry's business plans.

— Ashley Capoot