U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent plans to ‌discuss AI, trade, rare earths and economic ​issues when he meets ⁠with Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng in New York City this weekend, according to a ‌source familiar with his plans.

The discussions are significant because the U.S. and ‌China are the two major forces ‌driving ⁠development of advanced AI tools and ⁠the global adoption of the technology. Rare earths play a crucial role in the manufacturing of technology.

Mr. Bessent ​and Mr. He ‌will meet ahead of a summit between U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping on September 24 in Washington.

Mr. Bessent said in a statement that he expects the discussions to ⁠cover “both open- and closed-weight models.” Open-weight models are AI systems with publicly accessible core ‌elements. Users can download and fine-tune them for specific tasks.

Chinese open-weight models are becoming more popular with U.S. companies because they can be cheaper than so-called closed-weight AI tools, such as those developed ‌by Anthropic, OpenAI and other U.S. companies.

Chinese AI ​models have even been used by the U.S. government. Reuters reported on ⁠Thursday (September 17, 2026) that a U.S. government website employed an ⁠AI model from a Chinese company to allow users to search proposed ‌federal regulations even though the FBI accused the model’s developer, Alibaba, of “malicious” copying ​of Anthropic’s technology.