Trump to attend AI and energy summit in Pittsburgh

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By Kanishka Singh

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -U.S. President Donald Trump and executives from the tech and energy sectors will appear at an artificial intelligence and energy summit in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on July 15, the office of the state’s U.S. Senator Dave McCormick said on Thursday.

McCormick’s inaugural Pennsylvania Energy and Innovation Summit will be held at Carnegie Mellon University, his office said in a statement.

Axios reported that tech executives like OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, Meta Platforms CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai were on the summit’s guest list. Exxon Mobil CEO Darren Woods, Shell CEO Wael Sawan and Chevron CEO Mike Wirth were also on that list, according to Axios.

White House AI czar David Sacks, who is also expected to attend the summit, expressed concern earlier this week that regulating U.S. AI too tightly could stifle growth and cede the critical market to China.

The comments indicated the Republican president’s approach to AI could be centered on expanding markets abroad for U.S. AI chips and models. Democratic former President Joe Biden had emphasized policies that countered risks the chips could be diverted to China and used to bolster Beijing’s military.

A group of 40 state attorneys general, including Republicans from Ohio, Tennessee, Arkansas, Utah and Virginia and other states, have pushed back against Republican attempts to block states from regulating AI, saying states should develop and enforce common-sense regulation to protect consumers.

(Reporting by Kanishka Singh and Ismail Shakil; Editing by Leslie Adler)