On February 12, 2025, United States Vice President Pence delivered a speech at an artificial intelligence (AI) summit in Paris on Tuesday, without directly naming China’s authoritarian regime, he criticized its use of AI to enhance military intelligence and surveillance capabilities to obtain foreign information. He emphasized that the United States will fully thwart these attempts.
In addition to attending the summit, Pence also met with Ursula von der Leyen, the President of the European Commission. Following the meeting, von der Leyen stated that the EU will push for a €200 billion (approximately $206 billion) investment in AI in Europe, with €500 billion coming from the EU budget and the rest from AI “providers, investors, and industry.”
During the AI summit on Tuesday, Pence asserted that the United States will protect its AI and chip technology and prevent the weaponization of critical technology.
He criticized authoritarian regimes without explicitly naming China’s government in his speech, stating, “Some authoritarian regimes steal and use AI to strengthen their military intelligence and surveillance capabilities, obtain foreign data, and conduct propaganda to undermine the national security of other countries.” Pence added, “I want to be clear that this administration will do everything to stop these attempts, comprehensively.”
“We will protect American AI and chip technology from theft and misuse, collaborate with our allies and partners to enhance and expand these protective measures, and close off the avenues for adversaries to obtain AI capabilities, preventing them from threatening all of us,” Pence said.
The focus of this week’s AI Action Summit has largely been on the AI model of the Chinese startup DeepSeek, which claims to achieve performance comparable to OpenAI’s model at a lower cost. While Pence did not explicitly name DeepSeek, he aimed his speech at low-cost, heavily subsidized technology.
“We are all familiar with the cheap technology in the market, which has received massive subsidies from authoritarian regimes and is being exported overseas,” he said, further pointing out that cooperation with companies operating under such authoritarian regimes “will never yield returns.” Collaborating with these companies means “enslaving your country to an authoritarian master, who is trying to infiltrate, mine, and seize your information infrastructure.”
According to AFP, Pence was essentially criticizing China’s use of AI technology to strengthen both domestic and international control.
On Tuesday in Paris, Pence met with von der Leyen and Vice President of the European Commission Kaja Kallas at the U.S. ambassador’s residence to discuss trade and economic issues. The day before, President Trump decided to impose tariffs on all steel and aluminum imports, sparking concerns about a trade war.
Pence stated, “The Trump administration is very clear, we care deeply about Europe. We see a lot of economic relationships that can be built with Europe.”
During a sideline meeting at the AI summit in Paris, he also expressed, “We also hope to ensure that we truly establish a security partnership that benefits both Europe and the United States.”
Von der Leyen praised Pence’s optimistic remarks on AI during the summit speech on Tuesday.
“I think our transatlantic relationship is like that as well,” she said. “We should look at our deep and solid transatlantic relationship with optimism.”