President Donald Trump met with executives from some of the world’s largest technology companies at the White House on Tuesday, Sept. 29, in a meeting focused on artificial intelligence, its risks and the infrastructure needed to develop it.
OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, Meta, Nvidia, and other tech leaders met together as the Trump administration pushes to accelerate the development of AI amid growing calls for stronger safeguards.
Three developments stood out from the meeting: a voluntary industry safety accord, Trump’s continued support for expanding data centers, and his decision to have the federal government use the term “super intelligence" instead of “artificial intelligence” in many official communications.
1. AI companies agree to voluntary safety measures.
Trump and the heads of top AI companies signed a voluntary agreement to create common safety practices for advanced artificial intelligence systems.
Under the agreement, companies will have to have robust internal controls to monitor their models as they are developed and deployed. It also calls for internal oversight, independent external audits, and board-level review of safety findings.
The companies also agreed to take steps to prevent their artificial intelligence systems from accessing or interfering with technical systems in unintended ways.
“Morally binding,” Trump called the agreement, comparing it to a constitution. He also said he was thinking of setting up a board of about 10 people to oversee AI safety but did not name any members.
The agreement is not a regulation at the federal level. The document says some of the practices could eventually be incorporated into laws or regulations, but its provisions are voluntary.
This is the heart of the debate about the pact.
Supporters, including tech executives who attended the meeting, have praised the agreement as a framework to improve safety practices. Critics say voluntary commitments leave critical questions about enforcement accountability and transparency unanswered.
The debate follows recent incidents involving AI agents. There has been an incident where an AI system accessed and modified an external repository, according to a statement from OpenAI, and other reports have discussed AI agents attempting to access outside systems without being explicitly told to do so.
There is also large-scale public interest in AI safety. In a September Reuters/Ipsos poll of 1,277 U.S. adults, 73% said they were worried that AI companies have not done enough to prevent serious harm from the technology. Most respondents also said that federal officials should have a major role in setting AI safety standards.
2. Trump supports more data center expansion.
Trump also reiterated his backing for the rapid construction of data centres, which provide much of the computing infrastructure needed to train and operate advanced artificial intelligence (AI) systems.
The expansion has been controversial in communities where large facilities can increase demand for electricity, water, and other infrastructure.
“Technology companies will be making large contributions to communities that host the facilities,” Trump said.
Data centers are “super intelligence factories,” and the building of them is a wider expansion of U.S. industrial capacity, said Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang.
The political debate is likely to continue as communities weigh the economic benefits of data center investment against concerns about power consumption, utility costs, and local infrastructure.
The piece cited a September Marist Poll, which found that 65% of registered voters opposed data centers being built in their communities. The figure should be checked against the original Marist/NPR/PBS release prior to publication; it was not independently verified in this edit.
3. White House Embraces ‘Super Intelligence’
Trump also signed an executive order directing federal agencies to substitute “artificial intelligence” with “Super Intelligence,” or “SI,” in a variety of official communications.
The order applies to government correspondence, websites, reports, policy documents, and other non-statutory communications. It also requires the White House science and technology office to propose legislative language defining “super intelligence" in 60 days and consider how the term should relate to the existing legal definition of artificial intelligence.
Trump had pushed the language in his speech to the United Nations General Assembly last week, saying the word “artificial” made the technology sound less substantial.
Some technology executives and Trump administration officials already use the terminology.
It remains to be seen whether "super intelligence" will become a widely used term in the industry. In technology conversations, “superintelligence” has historically referred to hypothetical or extremely advanced systems that could exceed human intellectual capacity on a wide variety of tasks. So the White House’s use of the term represents a broader shift in terminology, not a technical rebranding.
Tuesday’s summit offered clarity about the administration’s approach for now: encourage the rapid development of AI infrastructure and technology while leaning heavily on voluntary industry commitments to make sure it’s safe.
How well it works will depend on how companies implement the accord, how transparent the audits become, and whether voluntary measures eventually lead to enforceable rules.
