China’s intelligence chief warns of risks from AI as ‘new arena for strategic rivalry’

China’s top intelligence official has warned of rising national security risks posed by artificial intelligence (AI), calling for robust risk prevention frameworks and stronger global governance of the emerging technology.

The call from Chen Yixin, China’s state security minister, comes as Beijing seeks to play a leading role in global AI governance while criticising US restrictions. At the Brics summit in India over the weekend, Chinese President Xi Jinping proposed an AI-powered initiative to drive new industrialisation and deepen supply chain cooperation in the emerging economies bloc.

Chen underscored Beijing’s view of the technology as a key geopolitical battleground. AI has become “a new arena for strategic rivalry among major powers”, he wrote for China Cyberspace, a journal run by internet watchdog body the Cyberspace Administration of China.

The article was published on the journal’s social media account on Sunday.

Chen called for maintaining security boundaries while seizing new opportunities as he highlighted the risks of AI development.

AI could have a systemic impact on ideological security, he warned, including being “leveraged by hostile forces” to generate rumours and mass-produce harmful information.

The technology also posed serious risks to critical information infrastructure, Chen warned, arguing that advances marked by next-generation US-led models such as Anthropic’s Claude Mythos and OpenAI’s GPT-5.5-Cyber could significantly lower the technical threshold and costs of executing cyberattacks.