Trump urges US and China to adopt ‘superintelligence’ term for AI
US President Donald Trump is pressing government agencies and other countries to replace the established term artificial intelligence with “superintelligence”. China did not adopt the wording in its account of a summit with Trump, while a Chinese official said Beijing respected the US choice of terminology.
US President Donald Trump is urging the United States and other countries to use “superintelligence”, or SI, instead of artificial intelligence, elevating a proposed change in terminology during recent discussions with China. Trump said at the United Nations General Assembly that US government documents, and hopefully documents worldwide, would use the new term. The US State Department subsequently instructed American diplomats to use SI in official communications, according to the Associated Press.
The administration highlighted the wording after Trump’s summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping. A US summary of the meeting said Xi had agreed to use “superintelligence” rather than “artificial intelligence”. Trump later described the term as more elegant and accurate.
China’s own eight-point account of the summit did not use the proposed replacement. It referred instead to a new China-US “AI dialogue”. Asked whether Beijing would adopt the US terminology, a Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson said China respected the United States’ choice of term.
Artificial intelligence is the established name for computer systems that use data and algorithms to perform tasks associated with intelligence. “Superintelligence” generally refers to a hypothetical system that would exceed human intelligence across all areas, although experts disagree over whether such a system can be developed. Researchers including Yoshua Bengio and Geoffrey Hinton have warned that superintelligence could eventually create unprecedented risks.
Two US lawmakers, Senator Bernie Sanders and Representative Greg Casar, introduced legislation that would prohibit its development. Trump has rejected calls to slow or regulate AI development, describing them as a hoax. A senior White House official also said at the UN Security Council that Washington opposed what it called a global system of control over superintelligence.
The reason for Trump’s push remains unclear. He criticised the word “artificial” in 2025, saying it made the technology sound fake. The change is being proposed as public concern grows over AI infrastructure, including data centres.
This independently written report is based on information supplied by the named publisher. Vertrix News has not independently verified the source report.