Finance

China’s Xi Jinping meets with U.S. national security advisor Jake Sullivan

Published

9 months ago

August 29, 2024

US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan shakes hands with China’s President Xi Jinping during their meeting at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on August 29, 2024.

Trevor Hunnicutt

BEIJING — Chinese President Xi Jinping told U.S. national security advisor Jake Sullivan during a meeting Thursday that Beijing hopes Washington will find “a right way” to get along.

“While great changes have taken place in the two countries and in China-U.S. relations, China’s commitment to the goal of a stable, healthy and sustainable China-U.S. relationship remains unchanged,” Xi said, according to an English-language release shared by China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Tensions between the world’s two largest economies have escalated in recent years, spilling over from trade into finance and technology.

The Chinese leader said Thursday he hopes the U.S. would view China’s development “in a positive” light and “work with China to find a right way for two major countries to get along with each others,” according to Beijing.

China's 'appetite and dreams' about Taiwan are still there, says CFR's Richard Haass

Sullivan, advisor to the outgoing Biden administration, arrived in Beijing Tuesday for two days of meetings with Wang Yi, China’s top diplomat.

On Thursday, Sullivan met with Zhang Youxia, vice chairman of the Chinese Communist Party’s Central Military Commission.

This is Sullivan’s first trip to China as national security advisor, despite having met multiple times with Wang in recent years.

The last official trip to China by a U.S. president’s national security advisor was in 2016, when Susan Rice traveled to Beijing under the Obama administration.

U.S. President Joe Biden and Xi have decided to speak by phone in “coming weeks,” the White House said Wednesday. Sullivan is scheduled to depart China later Thursday.

While the outcome of November’s U.S. presidential election remains unclear, being tough on Beijing is a rare issue that both U.S. political parties agree on.

Biden dropped out of the U.S. presidential race this summer, endorsing his Vice President Kamala Harris as the Democrat nominee.

Harris’ current national security advisor, Phil Gordon, said in May at a Council on Foreign Relations event that the “China challenge” is much greater than Taiwan, and requires ensuring that Beijing “doesn’t have the advanced technology, intelligence and military capabilities that can challenge us.”

Finance

UK’s FCA teams up with Nvidia to let banks experiment with AI

Published

2 hours ago

June 9, 2025

Business Finance News

Jakub Porzycki | Nurphoto | Getty Images

LONDON — Britain’s financial services watchdog on Monday announced a new tie-up with U.S. chipmaker Nvidia to let banks safely experiment with artificial intelligence.

The Financial Conduct Authority said it will launch a so-called Supercharged Sandbox that will “give firms access to better data, technical expertise and regulatory support to speed up innovation.”

Starting from October, financial services institutions in the U.K. will be allowed to experiment with AI using Nvidia’s accelerated computing and AI Enterprise Software products, the watchdog said in a press release.

The initiative is designed for firms in the “discovery and experiment phase” with AI, the FCA noted, adding that a separate live testing service exists for firms further along in AI development.

“This collaboration will help those that want to test AI ideas but who lack the capabilities to do so,” Jessica Rusu, the FCA’s chief data, intelligence and information officer, said in a statement. “We’ll help firms harness AI to benefit our markets and consumers, while supporting economic growth.”

The FCA’s new sandbox addresses a key issue for banks, which have faced challenges shipping advanced new AI tools to their customers amid concerns over risks around privacy and fraud.

Large language models from the likes of OpenAI and Google send data back to overseas facilities — and privacy regulators have raised the alarm over how this information is stored and processed. There have meanwhile been several instances of malicious actors using generative AI to scam people.

Nvidia is behind the graphics processing units, or GPUs, used to train and run powerful AI models. The company’s CEO, Jensen Huang, is expected to give a keynote talk at a tech conference in London on Monday morning.

Last year, HSBC’s generative AI lead, Edward Achtner, told a London tech conference he sees “a lot of success theater” in finance when it comes to artificial intelligence — hinting that some financial services firms are touting advances in AI without tangible product innovations to show for it.

He added that, while banks like HSBC have used AI for many years, new generative AI tools like OpenAI’s ChatGPT come with their own unique compliance risks.