{"slug": "us-treasury-s-bessent-plans-to-discuss-ai-and-rare-earths-with-china-s-he-source", "title": "US Treasury's Bessent plans to discuss AI and rare earths with China's He, source says", "summary": "US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent plans to discuss AI, trade, rare earths and economic issues with Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng in New York City this weekend, according to a source familiar with his plans, meeting ahead of a September 24 summit between US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping in Washington. Bessent said in a statement he expects the talks to cover \"both open- and closed-weight models,\" as Chinese open-weight models gain popularity with US companies for being cheaper than closed-weight tools from Anthropic, OpenAI and other US firms. Reuters reported Thursday that a US government website used an AI model from Alibaba — which the FBI accused of \"malicious\" copying of Anthropic's technology — to let users search proposed federal regulations.", "body_md": "By Courtney Rozen\n\nWASHINGTON, Sept 18 (Reuters) - US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent plans to discuss AI, trade, rare earths and economic issues when he meets with Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng in New York City this weekend, according to a source familiar with his plans.\n\nThe discussions are significant because the US and China are the two major forces driving development of advanced AI tools and the global adoption of the technology. Rare earths play a crucial role in the manufacturing of technology.\n\nBessent and He will meet ahead of a summit between US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping on September 24 in Washington.\n\nThe Associated Press first reported the US plans.\n\nBessent said in a statement that he expects the discussions to cover \"both open- and closed-weight models.\" Open-weight models are AI systems with publicly accessible core elements. Users can download and fine-tune them for specific tasks.\n\nChinese open-weight models are becoming more popular with US companies because they can be cheaper than so-called closed-weight AI tools, such as those developed by Anthropic, OpenAI and other US companies.\n\nChinese AI models have even been used by the US government. Reuters reported on Thursday that a US government website employed an AI model from a Chinese company to allow users to search proposed federal regulations even though the FBI accused the model's developer, Alibaba, of \"malicious\" copying of Anthropic's technology.\n\n(Reporting by Courtney Rozen; Editing by Paul Simao)", "url": "https://wpnews.pro/news/us-treasury-s-bessent-plans-to-discuss-ai-and-rare-earths-with-china-s-he-source", "canonical_source": "https://ca.finance.yahoo.com/news/us-treasurys-bessent-plans-discuss-185256830.html", "published_at": "2026-09-18 18:52:56+00:00", "updated_at": "2026-09-18 19:23:30.625587+00:00", "lang": "en", "topics": ["ai-policy", "artificial-intelligence", "large-language-models", "ai-products"], "entities": ["Scott Bessent", "He Lifeng", "US Treasury", "China", "Donald Trump", "Xi Jinping", "Alibaba", "Anthropic"], "alternates": {"html": "https://wpnews.pro/news/us-treasury-s-bessent-plans-to-discuss-ai-and-rare-earths-with-china-s-he-source", "markdown": "https://wpnews.pro/news/us-treasury-s-bessent-plans-to-discuss-ai-and-rare-earths-with-china-s-he-source.md", "text": "https://wpnews.pro/news/us-treasury-s-bessent-plans-to-discuss-ai-and-rare-earths-with-china-s-he-source.txt", "jsonld": "https://wpnews.pro/news/us-treasury-s-bessent-plans-to-discuss-ai-and-rare-earths-with-china-s-he-source.jsonld"}}