WASHINGTON, May 6 (UPI) -- As President Donald Trump prepared for his meeting with China's president Xi Jinping in Beijing next week, Japanese lawmakers have urged the United States to remain focused on the U.S.-Japan alliance in artificial intelligence and critical minerals.
Trump said at a White House meeting Monday that the United States was outrunning China in the AI race.
Referring to the meeting May 14 and 15, Trump said, "I look forward to that. But I'll say 'I'm leading,'" he added jokingly. "We have very friendly competition, but it will actually be a very important trip."
The Japanese politicians, though, underscored the importance of the United States maintaining a strong partnership with Japan to further Trump's AI ambitions and reduce dependence on Chinese supply chains.
"No one country can build the entire AI stack alone. Not Japan, not even the United States. We are interdependent in filling certain layers of the AI stack to make this work and function, and we need collaboration in that front," Akihisa Shiozaki, deputy secretary general of Japan's Liberal Democratic Party, said at a Brookings Institution panel discussion Monday.
