Trump Claims Xi Endorsed Rebranding AI as 'Super Intelligence' After White House Summit

President Trump claimed via Truth Social that Chinese President Xi Jinping appeared enthusiastic about his push to rename artificial intelligence 'super intelligence,' following a bilateral meeting Trump described as 'very productive.' Trump wrote that Xi 'seemed to like' the rebranding, predicting that 'tremendous things will be happening' as a result of their discussions.

The claim carries a notable caveat: when Xi publicly addressed AI during his White House visit on Thursday, he did not use the term 'superintelligence' at all. Instead, Xi spoke in conventional terms about humanity's 'capability and responsibility' to develop and manage AI for good and keep it under human control — language that conspicuously avoided Trump's preferred framing.

Trump had announced the terminology shift earlier in the week at the United Nations General Assembly, declaring that U.S. official documents and communications would replace 'artificial intelligence' with 'super intelligence.' The State Department has since issued guidance directing diplomats to adopt the new term going forward — an unusual bureaucratic ripple effect from what amounts to a presidential branding preference.

The word 'superintelligence' already has a specific, well-established meaning in the AI research community: it refers to a hypothetical form of AI that surpasses human cognitive ability across all domains. It is simultaneously the moonshot goal of leading frontier AI labs and the scenario most feared by AI safety researchers warning of existential risk. By mainstreaming the term in diplomatic and governmental contexts, the Trump administration is effectively injecting a technically charged — and deeply contested — concept into everyday policy language.