US Vice President JD Vance will attend AI summit in Paris, French official says

Vance going to AI summit

Photo: AP

Vice President JD Vance speaks in the James Brady Press Briefing Room at the White House, Thursday, Jan. 30, 2025, in Washington. 

U.S. Vice President JD Vance will attend a two-day high-level summit focusing on artificial intelligence in Paris next week, his first scheduled trip abroad since taking office, a French diplomatic official said Tuesday.

The AI Action Summit on Feb. 10-11 will gather heads of state and top government officials, CEOs and other actors involved in the tech sector, which has been shaken up by galloping advances.

Vance has not made any official foreign trips since his inauguration last month. The White House had no immediate comment.

The French diplomatic official spoke on condition of anonymity as the list of top attendees has not been made official yet.

China’s Vice Premier Ding Xuexiang is among those expected to attend the summit, which will be co-presided by French President Emmanuel Macron and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

The summit will take place at the Grand Palais, last year's Olympic venue for the fencing and taekwondo competitions. A dinner with top officials and CEOs is also scheduled at the Elysee presidential palace.

Vance's trip comes after U.S. President Donald Trump last month talked up a joint venture investing up to $500 billion for infrastructure tied to artificial intelligence by a new partnership of OpenAI, Oracle and SoftBank. The new entity, Stargate, will start building data centers and the electricity generation needed for the further development of the fast-evolving AI in Texas, according to the White House.

Meanwhile, Chinese AI model DeepSeek’s emergence has shaken up the tech sector, offering companies access to the technology at a fraction of the previous cost and providing the potential to push other AI companies to improve their models and bring down prices.

Vance in the past has acknowledged some harmful AI applications, but said at a July Senate hearing that he worries that concern is justifying “some preemptive overregulation attempts that would frankly entrench the tech incumbents that we already have.”