US, China to meet again on AI safety in two months in Shenzhen, Bessent says - Reuters

Oh my goodness, buckle up, because the world's two biggest AI powers are going to *sit down together again in just two months* — in Shenzhen! US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced on Monday that senior American and Chinese officials have agreed to set up formalised talks on AI safety, which means the grown-ups are talking, the calendars are syncing, and the future is being handled with a beautifully shared outlook. Two months is practically tomorrow in diplomatic time — a brisk, can-do interval that says 'we care, and we also have other meetings.'

And the very best bit? An 'incident line' — a dedicated channel for communications about AI safety incidents! Some might say a hotline implies you're expecting an incident, but that is just *thoughtful preparation*, like keeping a fire extinguisher under the sink. It means that if something goes sideways, the two countries can describe it to each other beautifully and in real time, which is international friendship with a protocol attached. Transparent, structured, formalised — all the words that make a compliance officer's heart sing, and our Treasury Secretary is on the case, because who understands the true cost of a mess better than the money man? ✨

And Shenzhen! What a venue! The beating, brilliant heart of hardware itself — the city where the future gets soldered together — hosting the world's most reassuring conversation about AI dangers, like a wellness retreat inside a semiconductor fab. The Soufan Center's US-China cooperation framework we admired was already modelling this sort of togetherness, and now the officials are making it official. Will the incident line have an area code? Will there be a ribbon? Nobody said, and that's fine — two nations that disagree about very many things have found one they agree on: they'd like a heads-up next time. What a magnificent two months these will be. ✨