DeepSeek to brief UN Security Council on AI risks amid rising global tech rivalry

Chinese artificial intelligence (AI) startup DeepSeek along with other domestic peers like Alibaba-backed Moonshot has been invited to make statements and brief the United Nations Security Council on the risks posed by artificial intelligence.

The 15-member Security Council is scheduled to meet to discuss AI and international security during the high-level annual opening of the UN General Assembly in New York.

DeepSeek's inclusion places it in the same diplomatic ecosystem as prominent American tech leaders, including OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and senior representatives from Anthropic, who are also slated to participate.

While DeepSeek has been invited to submit formal statements, sources note that founder Liang Wenfeng does not currently plan to travel for an in-person appearance, though schedules remain fluid.

The high-stakes session comes amid sharp disagreements between Washington and Beijing over global AI governance.

While Western leaders and UN officials like Secretary-General António Guterres have pushed for coordinated safeguards and warnings over advanced systems slipping out of human control, Chinese state media has heavily critiqued slowdown proposals as a "Cold War" tactic by the U.S. to protect its technological hegemony.

DeepSeek and other Chinese AI firms including Moonshot have been invited to make statements, one of the sources said.

However, DeepSeek founder Liang Wenfeng does not plan to attend, the source said, cautioning that plans remain fluid and could change at the last minute.

Senior US and Chinese officials also agreed to hold further talks on AI safety, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said on Monday, after meeting ahead of Trump's scheduled talks with Chinese president Xi Jinping later this week in Washington.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned world leaders last week that rapidly advancing AI poses risks that cannot be ignored, putting him at odds with US President Donald Trump, who has argued existing safeguards are sufficient and China would benefit from the doubt being cast on AI development.

Chinese state media have dismissed calls for a slowdown in AI development as stemming from a "Cold War playbook," aimed at preserving Washington's dominance in cutting-edge technology and excluding Beijing from the global AI governance system.

Unlike leaders of US frontier labs such as OpenAI and Anthropic, the heads of China's leading model developers have rarely publicly articulated the possibility that increasingly capable AI systems themselves could deceive humans, evade control or cause catastrophic harm.