‘Making China the elephant in the room’: The G7 confronts its reliance on U.S. AI and Chinese energy supply chains, experts say

At a French Alpine town known for its bottled water rather than high-stakes diplomacy, the leaders of the seven largest and wealthiest democracies will discuss how to solve pressing issues like Ukraine and the Middle East through Wednesday. But the Evian agenda topics also reflect two interwoven anxieties: the Group of Seven’s dependence on China’s supply chains and reliance on the United States’ AI. The Trump administration’s decision to place export controls on Anthropic’s frontier models Fable 5 and Mythos 5 will be a “key topic” on the summit’s AI conversation, according to Andrea Renda, research director at the Centre for European Policy Studies who focuses on AI policy.

“The other six are quite annoyed and upset by the fact that the U.S. has actually tried to implement this differential treatment in terms of access to Claude Fable 5 for non-U.

S. users,” Renda told Fortune, saying it’s “inaugurating an era” of weaponizing U.S AI against traditional allies.

While OpenAI’s Sam Altman, Anthropic’s Dario Amodei, and Meta’s Alex Wang are among the 11 AI CEOs attending the summit, it’s unlikely the leaders of France, Britain, Canada, Germany, Italy, Japan, and the European Union can actually deliver the summit’s goals to align on AI because of the U.S. and China.

“G7 pledges to adopt a more inclusive approach for AI, with steps towards developing economies, are unlikely to garner much (if any) interest from the U.S.,” Agathe Demerais, senior policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations, told Fortune in an emailed statement.

“This reflects the fact that the two leading AI powers are the U.S. and China, with not much space for other G7 economies to play a driving role here.”

China is not attending the G7 summit, though Bloomberg reported French president Emmanuel Macron considered inviting Xi Jinping in November, but participated in an “unprecedented” call with Macron ahead of the G7, signaling China’s status in the G7 discussion, according to Alisha Chha