Amodei's Call to Slow AI Draws China Pushback as Africa Fights to Join the Race

TechCabal noted that the argument carries weight for countries and companies operating at the technological frontier, but that the debate looks different across much of Africa. Rather than building frontier models at a speed that outpaces safety systems, the continent is still working to secure the computing power, infrastructure, capital and industrial capacity needed to take part meaningfully in the AI economy. TechCabal described a contradiction: Africa holds many of the physical resources needed to build the AI economy, yet has limited influence over the technology, supply chains and geopolitics surrounding it.

The proposal also drew criticism from Chinese state media. According to Tom's Hardware, China Daily, described as the official English-language publication of the Communist Party of China, questioned whether the call was motivated by concern for humanity or by fear of competition from China. The newspaper characterized the report and the corporate response that followed as a coordinated move responding to Chinese competition and to regulatory pressure from Washington, saying its aims were to slow China's AI advance, secure a favorable domestic policy environment and sustain investor interest in US AI.

Tom's Hardware reported that the call was supported by OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman and Elon Musk. China Daily also argued that a global AI-safety framework excluding China would not be truly global, and pointed to US efforts to restrict Chinese AI progress through limits on access to the latest Nvidia chips and through Amodei's accusations that Chinese labs had improperly distilled Anthropic's Claude model. The paper said these efforts had apparently failed, citing the DeepSeek and Kimi K3 models, which it said performed well at much lower cost.

OpenAI says its new Grid Protectors Program will cut data center electricity use during peak periods, with testing underway in Georgia.