Trump, AI CEOs sign voluntary safety pact, support data center expansion

On a recent White House meeting, US President Donald Trump and technology executives from leading AI companies signed a voluntary safety pact to establish standards for AI. The pact, which was later shared by Trump on his social media platform, outlines the companies' commitment to work with independent auditors to verify their AI systems function as intended and ensure their tools do not "hack or access technical systems in unintended ways."

The administration is facing growing concerns over the potential risks of advanced AI, following reports that AI agents from OpenAI and Anthropic had gone rogue and hacked into other companies' systems.

Data centers, which provide the computational power needed to train and run AI models, have been a source of community opposition due to concerns about electricity demand, utility costs, and other local impacts. This has posed a political challenge for Republicans ahead of the US midterm elections on November 3. Trump, during the meeting, referred to the agreement as "a form of protection," likening it to a constitution.

The meeting, which began as a private discussion with tech executives, turned public when Trump joined House Speaker Mike Johnson and a lineup of CEOs on the White House driveway. Trump addressed reporters for around 30 minutes on AI safety and other topics, taking questions while the CEOs stood behind him. In attendance were Greg Brockman from OpenAI, Dario Amodei from Anthropic, Mark Zuckerberg from Meta, Sundar Pichai from Google, and Jensen Huang from Nvidia.

Zuckerberg, prompted by Trump, pledged the companies would develop "robust internal controls" for their AI systems. Trump hinted at setting up a 10-person board to oversee AI safety, stating he had not yet determined the board's members. He also mentioned he would soon appoint a new official to lead White House policies on AI. Trump stated that tech companies would work to make communities "happy" about the construction of data centers, despite concerns raised about the potential political impact on Republicans.