미국 재무부 장관 베센트는 중국의 AI 우위가 미국에 가장 큰 위험을 초래한다고 경고했다.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has shifted the public narrative on artificial intelligence, urging stakeholders to look past concerns about workforce displacement and instead focus on the strategic threat posed by China’s AI advancement. Addressing the Economic Club of New York on June 24, Bessent characterized China’s progress in artificial intelligence as the “biggest risk” to the sector. He argued that if Beijing achieves AI superiority, U.S. defense systems and the underlying technological infrastructure supporting them would be rendered obsolete.

Operating under a dual mandate overseeing U.S.-China economic relations and AI policy, Bessent holds significant influence over how Washington manages competition in what he considers the defining technology of the century. Alongside his broader warning, he alleged that Chinese entities, including firms linked to Moonshot AI, have been distilling components from U.S. AI systems. This practice involves reverse-engineering American models to replicate their capabilities while bypassing costly research and development. Bessent indicated that continued reliance on such methods could trigger new sanctions and trade restrictions.

To counter Beijing’s progress, the United States has enforced stringent export controls on advanced semiconductors, targeting China’s capacity to train and deploy frontier AI models. Concurrently, U.S. officials are negotiating revenue-sharing frameworks with domestic chipmakers such as Nvidia. The strategy acknowledges that restricting access to major international markets requires compensatory mechanisms to sustain corporate viability and innovation pipelines.

Formal bilateral dialogues on AI governance were initiated following a U.S.-China summit in May 2026, with the subsequent round scheduled for September 2026. Earlier diplomatic engagements yielded commitments to prevent non-state actors from misusing advanced AI systems. The upcoming September talks will address more contentious issues, including competitive market practices, model distillation, and the parameters of acceptable AI development.

The prospect of sanctions against Chinese AI developers introduces substantial market uncertainty for firms with heavy exposure to China. In an environment where AI governance is classified as a national security priority rather than a commercial issue, supply chain fragmentation, retaliatory policies from Beijing, and evolving regulatory standards are increasingly probable. Investors monitoring this space should track the September bilateral negotiations as a critical inflection point. Successful diplomacy could result in eased restrictions and expanded market access, whereas a breakdown would likely precipitate further sanctions and fundamentally alter the competitive architecture of the global AI industry.

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