As Chinese President Xi Jinping arrives in Washington for a state summit, the Trump administration has arranged something beyond the usual diplomatic choreography: a private gathering of America's most consequential artificial intelligence leaders alongside the president himself. The presence of Sam Altman, Tim Cook, and Jensen Huang — representing the software, consumer, and silicon layers of the AI economy — signals that the United States now regards technological supremacy as inseparable from geopolitical standing. In placing these figures at the table during a meeting with Beijing's leader