Sam Altman, Jensen Huang, and Cristiano Amon are reportedly set to attend a September 24 White House state dinner between President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping.
Their presence signals that artificial intelligence and semiconductor access will be prominent themes at the high-stakes bilateral summit.
Politico reported the executives’ planned attendance, citing four people familiar with the event, with the gathering expected to address AI safety, development standards, and chip trade policy.
An OpenAI spokesperson confirmed Altman will attend but did not elaborate on his specific objectives for the summit.
Instead, the spokesperson pointed to Altman’s recent comments that Trump and Xi could earn a Nobel Peace Prize if they reach an agreement on AI governance.
A person familiar with the event confirmed Nvidia Corp. (NASDAQ: NVDA) CEO Jensen Huang’s attendance, though that person did not say what Huang hopes to achieve at the dinner.
Qualcomm Inc. (NASDAQ: QCOM) confirmed CEO Cristiano Amon’s attendance, with the executive stating he will represent the company and “the strength of American technology leadership on the global stage.”
Anthropic declined to comment on whether it had received an invitation, while spokespeople for Google, Meta, and AMD did not immediately respond to Politico’s requests for comment.
Altman and Huang have publicly taken opposing positions on whether AI development should be slowed to address safety concerns, adding an undercurrent of industry tension to the summit.
Altman recently backed Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei’s call for an industrywide slowdown, and said in a Fortune interview last week that Trump and Xi should set standards for developing and testing advanced AI models.
Huang has dismissed concerns that AI could ultimately destroy humanity, describing such fears as “hysterical,” a stance that broadly aligns with Trump’s own position on the matter.
The summit may also bring Nvidia’s commercial interests in China into sharp focus, as Huang has personally lobbied the White House and Congress to allow Nvidia to sell its advanced AI chips to Chinese buyers.
That lobbying effort raises the possibility that chip access could emerge as a concrete negotiating point between the two governments during the September 24 meeting.
Trump has previously brought technology executives into his bilateral engagements with Xi, inviting 17 business leaders to join him in China for discussions in May, with Huang receiving a last-minute invitation to that trip.
On Stocktwits, retail sentiment for NVDA was “bearish” with “low” message volume at the time of reporting, while sentiment for QCOM was “neutral” with “normal” message volume.
NVDA shares have gained nearly 17% year-to-date, while QCOM stock is up more than 8% over the same period, reflecting broader investor confidence in the AI and semiconductor sectors heading into the summit.
