The chiefs of the three most valuable AI companies on the planet will attend the Group of Seven summit next week in France, a rare moment when fierce competitors share a room with world leaders.
OpenAI's Sam Altman, Google's Demis Hassabis, and Anthropic's Dario Amodei are on the guest list released by the French presidential office, according to Bloomberg. All three companies confirmed their attendance. The summit arrives at a tense moment for the AI industry.
Leaders have expressed interest in hearing directly about the latest technology and its risks, including potential job displacement. An OpenAI spokesperson said the company plans to discuss those topics at G7 generally but declined to get specific. Anthropic and Google also did not elaborate beyond confirming their executives would attend.
The meeting carries extra weight given the awkward history between these players. Earlier this year, Amodei and Altman declined to hold hands on stage at an event hosted by the government of India, a much-discussed moment that laid bare the rivalry between the two companies, as The Hindu BusinessLine reported.
Both OpenAI and Anthropic are also under pressure to demonstrate the strength of their business models ahead of highly anticipated IPOs. OpenAI confidentially filed for its IPO earlier this week, while Anthropic filed earlier this month.
SpaceX, whose CEO Elon Musk also owns xAI, began trading this week with an initial share price of $135 and a valuation of $1.77 trillion, sucking up market liquidity that might have gone to the AI companies. The G7 gathering marks one of the first times the leaders of OpenAI, Google DeepMind, and Anthropic will sit in the same room as heads of state to discuss AI governance directly, a sign that governments are moving beyond briefings and demanding face time with the people building the technology.
