What happened
On 22 September 2026, Reps. Sam Liccardo (D-CA) and Kevin Kiley (I-CA) introduced legislation establishing US-China coordination on frontier AI safety: directing State to seek binding, verifiable safeguards (model testing/evaluation, independent auditing, transparency, incident reporting, capability pacing); directing Commerce to negotiate IP/distillation protections; creating a US-China 'AI red phone' incident hotline; authorizing $100M for the Center for AI Standards and Innovation (CAISI); and enabling tightly controlled expert engagement with State Dept registration and observation.
Why it matters
It is the first bill to translate the Trump-Xi 'Super Intelligence Dialogue' into a statutory framework with an incident-notification hotline and mandated technical engagement, complementing the bilateral AI dialogue announced by the Executive branch during Xi's state visit.
Action needed
AI labs and standards bodies with US-China collaborations should monitor whether the expert-engagement registration/observation regime becomes law, as it would add compliance requirements to cross-border AI safety work.