- US x China agree to pace the AI frontier in 2026?4¢4%
US and Chinese leaders have shown no inclination toward jointly pacing frontier AI development, with President Trump stating explicitly after the September 2026 summit that the United States will not apply brakes and intends to preserve its lead in large language models and super intelligence capabilities. The resulting US-China Super Intelligence Dialogue and incident reporting channel address risk communication but impose no limits on model releases, compute scaling, or competitive timelines, while ongoing US export controls on advanced chips and China's push for open-weight models reinforce the arms-race dynamic. Traders assign 97.2% probability to no agreement in 2026 because structural incentives favor acceleration over restraint. The November 2026 dialogue round could theoretically yield unexpected commitments if a major incident forces alignment, though domestic priorities and mutual distrust make this improbable.
Rules
This market will resolve to "Yes" if the governments of the United States and China announce an AI pacing agreement between them by December 31, 2026, 11:59 PM ET. Otherwise, this market will resolve to "No". An AI pacing agreement means an agreement under which both governments commit to at least one of the following for AI developers within their jurisdictions: conditioning the training, releasing, or deploying AI models on safety requirements; capping the computing power used to train AI models; limiting the rate or extent to which AI systems autonomously train or improve more capable AI systems (recursive self-improvement); or otherwise pausing or slowing the training or release of AI models. Both governments must announce their acceptance of the agreement. A joint statement will qualify, as will separate official statements from each government that, taken together, confirm acceptance of the agreement. A statement by one government that the other does not confirm, and statements that reference ongoing negotiations, a prospective agreement, or an intention to cooperate without confirming acceptance of an agreement, will not qualify. A multilateral agreement will qualify, provided both the United States and China are parties to it and it otherwise meets the requirements above. Qualifying announcements must come from an authorized agency or representative of the relevant country acting in an official capacity. If a qualifying announcement is made within this market's timeframe, this market will resolve to "Yes" regardless of whether the agreement is binding, signed, ratified, later modified or withdrawn from, or ever implemented. The primary resolution sources for this market will be official information from the governments of the United States and China; however, a consensus of credible reporting may also be used.