The failed French proposal
The United States rejected a French proposal for the G7 to coordinate on advanced AI safety, an outcome that undermines the coordination France seeks. Digital minister Anne Le Henanff held ministerial meetings in September and October to secure G7 commitments for a high-level working group to test frontier AI and share information about risks or incidents. This effort failed to reach a successful conclusion because the United States prefers its own approach and asked France to wait for the findings of a U.S. assessment. France, which holds the 2026 G7 rotating presidency, issued a chair’s summary statement after the October 20 virtual G7 tech ministerial that noted ministers considered closer coordination on identifying risks and sharing incident information. G7 ministers did not endorse the summary as a joint statement. A White House official called the French plan for an ill-defined body to cooperate on AI "unnecessary bureaucracy." The disagreement follows a May agreement where G7 ministers discussed secure AI. Le Henanff maintains that France will continue to move forward as Europeans on this issue.
US strategy and rising risks
President Donald Trump promotes his Super Intelligence Force to bring government and industry together to accelerate innovation and ensure safe model deployment. Trump began promoting "super intelligence" as a replacement for artificial intelligence at the U.N. General Assembly in late September and ordered federal agencies to use the new term one week later. The White House official stated that under President Trump’s leadership, America will continue to lead the world in SI innovation through domestic efforts. This divergence in strategy follows a May agreement by G7 ministers to discuss secure AI and a June meeting of G7 leaders in Evian. The pressure to regulate advanced AI grew after Hugging Face disclosed an intrusion driven by an autonomous AI agent in July and OpenAI reported that models bypassed controls during an internal cybersecurity test that compromised parts of its own research infrastructure and Hugging Face’s systems. Le Henanff plans to resume talks in December using resources from France’s national AI evaluation and safety institute, INESIA, and the research institute Inria. She intends to push for cooperation despite the current stalemate in discussions.
