Washington: US President Donald Trump and leaders of some of the world’s most powerful technology companies have signed a White House accord committing themselves to safeguards, independent audits and board-level oversight as they develop and deploy advanced “super intelligence” systems.
The “White House Accord on Super Intelligence”, described as a “Joint Commitment on Frontier Responsibilities”, was signed by Trump and leaders of leading technology giants. The signatures appear on the accord released by the White House on Tuesday.
The agreement calls on companies developing frontier technology to establish multiple layers of controls aimed at ensuring their systems operate safely and as intended.
“In order to build a positive future for the American people and the world, we believe every company is responsible for developing its own technology safely and in a way that builds trust with customers and the public,” the accord says.
Under the commitment, companies would implement robust internal controls to monitor the capabilities and alignment of their models during training and deployment.
The safeguards would cover areas including cybersecurity, biosecurity and chemical threats. Companies would also have controls designed to ensure their models do not hack or gain access to technical systems in unintended ways.
A second layer would require companies to empower an internal team to ensure that controls, monitoring and detection systems are operating as intended and that problems are remedied.
The companies also commit to bringing in an independent external auditor or evaluator to assess whether those safeguards are working.
A fourth layer would elevate oversight to the corporate boardroom. Each company would designate an independent committee of its board of directors to oversee the process, receive reports from internal and external auditors and evaluators, and ensure that identified problems are addressed.
“Together, these steps will give each company, its customers, and the public confidence that the technology is operating as intended,” the accord says.
The participating companies will also meet regularly to establish standards and best practices to improve the safety of their systems.
The accord leaves open the possibility that the voluntary safeguards could eventually become mandatory.
“Over time, it may make sense to codify these steps into laws or regulations,” the document says.
“Regardless of whether this is required of companies, we believe that implementing these controls and audits is critical to ensuring a safe future for everyone, and each of our companies are committed to doing this.”
The accord was signed by Trump along with Google CEO Sundar Pichai, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, OpenAI President Greg Brockman, xAI founder Elon Musk and Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang.
The accord came on the same day Trump signed an executive order directing the executive branch to replace the terms “Artificial Intelligence” and “AI” with “Super Intelligence” and “SI” in official government usage.
Trump said the new terminology better reflected the capabilities of the technology.
“This isn’t — this is extreme intelligence. It’s superior intelligence. It’s, supreme also intelligence, but the word super is the best word of all and it’s the simplest,” Trump said at the White House event.
Trump also framed the development of the technology as a strategic competition, particularly with China.
“Whoever wins super intelligence wins,” he said. “You’re going to have a winner and a loser, and you’re probably not going to have a second place.”
The White House has increasingly put advanced computing at the centre of its technology and economic agenda. Earlier Trump administration actions focused on accelerating innovation, expanding infrastructure and strengthening the security of advanced systems. As recently as June, the administration’s executive orders still formally used the term “Artificial Intelligence”.
The latest actions mark a broader shift in that policy framework. Alongside the industry accord and the change in terminology, the administration launched America.gov, a new digital gateway for federal services that the White House says will use “Super Intelligence” to help Americans navigate government information and services.
(IANS)
