A large number of American big tech CEOs attend the Trump-Xi Jinping summit dinner... Chinese businessmen do not attend

The day AI emerged as an agenda… Jensen Huang, Tim Cook, Musk, Lisa Su, etc. at the dinner head table

Only high-ranking party and political figures attended... “It may have been difficult for mid-sized businessmen to attend due to U.S. sanctions.”

(Washington = Yonhap News) Correspondent Lee Yu-mi = A large number of CEOs of companies representing the United States attended the state banquet hosted by U.S. President Donald Trump for Chinese President Xi Jinping on the 24th (local time).

In particular, as the U.S.-China artificial intelligence (AI) competition emerged as a major topic of this summit, big names leading the high-tech industries such as AI and semiconductors gathered in one place and attracted attention.

The list of dinner invitees released by the White House on this day included Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, who leads the AI ​​semiconductor market, Sam Altman, CEO of ChatGPT developer OpenAI, and Greg Brockman, president and co-founder of OpenAI.

Heads of U.S. big tech leading the AI ​​development race, including Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, Mehta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Google CEO Sundar Pichai, Microsoft (MX) Chairman and CEO Satya Nadella, and Amazon Chairman Jeff Bezos, were also on the list.

Semiconductor industry figures such as AMD CEO Lisa Su, Micron CEO Sanjay Mehrotra, and Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Amon were also invited.

From AI model development to the semiconductors that run it, data centers and clouds, and consumer services, the heads of major companies that make up the U.S. AI ecosystem were all named.

In particular, as AI emerged as a major agenda at the US-China summit on this day, this list was revealed and attracted even more attention.

Four CEOs including Jensen Huang, Lisa Su, Elon Musk, and Tim Cook also sat at the head table where President Trump and President Xi were seated. Jensen Huang and Lisa Su are Taiwanese-American, and Musk's Tesla and Cook's Apple are companies that are relatively highly dependent on local factories and markets in China.

However, among AI companies, Antropic's CEO Dario Amodei, who has been in conflict with the Donald Trump administration, was not on the invitation list. Amodei recently called for an adjustment in the pace of AI development, and President Trump refuted this claim as a fraud.

Earlier, at the welcoming ceremony for President Xi held at the White House on this day, President Trump announced that during President Xi's visit to the United States, they will discuss not only the security and technology fields, but also 'super intelligence' (SI), an expression he uses instead of AI.

President Xi also said, “Both China and the United States are AI powers,” and “We have the ability and responsibility to develop and regulate AI well.”

On the other hand, there was not a single Chinese businessman on the list of dinner invitees released by the White House.

On the Chinese side, high-ranking party and political figures, including President Xi and his wife Peng Liyuan, and President Xi's closest associates, Tsai Chi, a member of the Standing Committee of the Communist Party Central Political Bureau, Wang Yi, Director of the Central Foreign Affairs Office and Foreign Minister, and Heifeng, Vice Premier of the State Council, were named.

In particular, executives of China's major AI and other technology companies, which are considered rivals of American companies in the US-China AI competition, were not on the public list.

This is in contrast to President Trump's visit to China last May, when he accompanied a delegation of American companies.

According to the New York Times, some CEOs of Chinese companies arrived in Washington just before this summit, but reportedly visited the United States separately from President Xi's visit.

The NYT reported that many of China's major internet and automobile companies are on the US sanctions list for reasons such as links to the Chinese military, so inviting these businessmen to a state dinner may have been a tricky issue for US officials.

Meanwhile, President Xi emphasized mutual investment and fair treatment of companies from both countries in his welcoming speech that day. President Xi said, “We welcome investment by American companies in China,” and urged, “We hope that the United States will treat Chinese companies fairly.”

From the U.S. government, Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, White House Chief of Staff Suzy Wiles, Treasury Secretary Scott Besant, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, and U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) Jamison Greer were present.

A large number of American business magnates were also invited to the dinner.

Financial figures such as JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon, Blackrock CEO Larry Fink, Blackstone CEO Stephen Schwarzman, and Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon, as well as Boeing CEO Kelly Ortberg, Lockheed Martin Chairman and CEO Jim Ticklet, and General Motors (GM) CEO Mary Barra were named on the list.