Amid growing public concern in the United States over the risks of artificial intelligence (AI), the White House has issued an executive order renaming AI as Super Intelligence (SI).
On the 29th local time, Trump signed the aforementioned executive order. The order states that the term "SI" can more accurately summarize the capabilities of this rapidly developing technology, because what it does goes "far beyond mimicking or automating certain specific aspects of human intelligence."
The executive order reads: "As these capabilities continue to improve, what they represent is no longer merely AI, but a new era of 'SI.' The terminology used by the federal government should reflect the transformative capabilities of these technologies and the boundless opportunities they create for the American people."
"It's not 'artificial,' we can all agree on that," Trump said on the 29th. On the same day, U.S. tech company executives signed a document at the White House regarding artificial intelligence that is "morally binding."
What exactly is SI, and who will use this term in the AI field in the future?
The term "Super Intelligence (SI)" generally refers to a type of artificial intelligence that surpasses human cognitive abilities in almost all dimensions of thinking. Currently, artificial intelligence with super intelligence has not yet been achieved.
The executive order issued by the White House requires that all U.S. federal agencies must use this new term or its abbreviation "SI" when mentioning this technology in public communications, websites, reports, and policy documents.
The executive order states that the term SI can more appropriately reflect the prospects, potential, and rapidly developing capabilities of these technologies. "In view of this, the policy established by this administration is as follows: to the maximum extent permitted by law, the executive branch should use SI to replace AI, and shall no longer recognize the use of 'artificial intelligence' and 'AI' in any applicable context."
The executive order also states that, to the maximum extent permitted by law, U.S. executive departments and agencies should use "Super Intelligence" and "SI" to replace "artificial intelligence" and "AI" in formal internal correspondence within the executive system, public communications, websites, reports, policy documents, and other non-statutory documents. However, it does not require modification of previously issued regulations, presidential actions, contracts, grants, or other historical documents.
Furthermore, according to the executive order, the Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, Michael Kratsios, will be responsible for determining whether the official definition of this new term needs to be modified or expanded.
In fact, a week earlier, Trump had already begun using this new term at the United Nations General Assembly to rebut calls for strengthened industry regulation. He assured leaders of various countries that tech company executives would establish appropriate "guardrails" for their respective AI models.
According to reports, Tesla Motors (TSLA) CEO Musk and NVIDIA (NVDA) CEO Huang Renxun have both changed their terminology to call AI as SI.
Huang Renxun stated at an event that data centers are now becoming "super intelligence factories (SI factories)."
Musk also appeared to quickly accept the new designation of SI, correcting himself mid-sentence on the 29th while discussing the benefits the technology would soon bring. "It is worth emphasizing the positive benefits brought by AI 鈥?oh no, I should say SI," Musk said. "This is super intelligence. I think the most likely outcome is an era of extreme material abundance; at that time, people will enjoy not just universal basic income, but universal high income."
AI controversy
Currently, the AI industry is driving a rebound in venture capital financing and research and development spending. According to a previous report by Oxford Economics, in terms of investment, U.S. investment is growing at about 3% per year, but this is entirely due to the AI sector. If the strong expansion of AI-related industries is excluded, U.S. investment is actually shrinking at about 2% per year. Data released by major international institutions also shows that AI is boosting global trade and investment.
Recently, WTO Chief Economist Robert Staiger said in an interview with Yicai that the AI investment boom has indeed driven significant growth in global trade and enhanced the resilience of global trade in the face of various shocks, such as policy changes or shipping lane blockages. "However, although the AI boom has promoted trade growth, this growth is mainly regional rather than widely distributed across all regions of the world. This point is worth noting when analyzing macroeconomic statistics and micro-level data," he emphasized.
On the 29th, the World Intellectual Property Organization released the 2026 Global Innovation Index, showing that in 2025, AI accounted for 53% of global venture capital transaction value, further rising to 77% in the first half of 2026. The United States has 12,752 deep tech startups, China has 3,466, and the United Kingdom has 2,133.
However, within the United States, safety concerns triggered by the rapid development of AI have become a focus of public opinion. On the 21st, the "Independent International Scientific Panel on AI" established by the United Nations General Assembly released a special briefing, stating that the risk of AI getting out of control is intensifying. Panel co-chair Bengio said that researchers have long warned that three conditions could lead to loss of control: misaligned goals, the capability to achieve goals, and an environment that allows it to happen. This summer, these three conditions appeared simultaneously in real systems, not in laboratories. Bengio said that given that this is not an isolated phenomenon of goal misalignment, it raises serious questions about the current way AI agents are trained.
In response to the aforementioned safety concerns, the White House's approach is to sign a "morally binding" document with U.S. tech giants. According to reports, the executives of six tech giants signed the agreement: Google CEO Pichai, Musk, Anthropic CEO Amodei, Meta CEO Zuckerberg, OpenAI President Brockman, and Huang Renxun.
Simply put, the document requires companies to cooperate with independent external audit institutions to assess whether models "operate as intended"; it also requires companies to implement internal controls, meaning relevant control measures are monitored by a dedicated team, which itself is supervised by an independent committee under the board of directors, to ensure that models do not intrude into systems.
Trump reiterated that he will not slow down the pace of AI development and emphasized that maintaining the United States' leading position in this technology field is a matter of national security.
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