Energy Secretary, CIA Director Among Top U.S. Officials in Attendance AI Executives at AWS Summit Hear Calls to Counter China Support Rallied for Genesis Mission to Win AI Race Against China
The "Amazon Web Services (AWS) Summit 2026" opened at the Walter E. Convention Center in Washington, D.C., running from June 30 through July 1. The event was designed to let attendees experience the latest artificial intelligence (AI) technology of AWS, the world's largest cloud company, and to understand how it can be applied to building government AI infrastructure. AI executives gathered at the venue, just 1.5 kilometers from the White House and a 20-minute walk away.
Although booths were set up for numerous AI companies including OpenAI, the developer of ChatGPT, and Anduril, an AI defense firm, what drew the most attention were key figures from the Donald Trump administration. Despite being an AI event, heads of U.S. energy and intelligence authorities turned out in full force, including Energy Secretary Chris Wright, Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Director John Ratcliffe, and Brandon Williams, Under Secretary for Nuclear Security at the Department of Energy and Administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA).
The Department of Energy is the key agency leading the Genesis Mission. The Genesis Mission is a national project mobilizing all capabilities to win the AI hegemony race against China, launched by President Trump last year. The NNSA under the Department of Energy announced on the first day of the event that it would store the first Genesis Mission work data on the AWS cloud.
The message from key figures in the Trump administration was consistent: the United States must stay ahead in the battle for AI hegemony with China. Intelligence authorities and AI-related agencies should band together to block the leakage of technology and secrets to China. In his keynote address on June 30, Wright called for countering China during a conversation with Dave Levy, AWS Vice President of Worldwide Public Sector.
"If China becomes the leader in AI, they will be a global superpower for the rest of this century," Wright said. "I've done a lot of business with China. There are wonderful people there, and it has had a good impact by lifting many people out of poverty. But their government does not respect human freedom and human rights the way we think about it. We don't want to see that." He stressed, "China is a dominant power in the world. The United States is not perfect, but it has been a great superpower that has brought prosperity and freedom to the whole world. We want to keep doing that. That's why it is very important that you work hard, advance this technology quickly, and build as much of it as possible within the United States."
Ratcliffe, who took the keynote stage after Wright, was no different. The head of U.S. intelligence appeared in a public setting and raised his voice, saying that AI technology must be actively used to block China as well as forces that threaten security. "We have to keep pushing the boundaries. The country that best harnesses the power of technology will succeed and will determine the future. When I became director, I said I would make the emerging technology competition with China my top priority, and 18 months later, that has not changed," he said, emphasizing that what has changed is the technology transforming at an astonishing pace.
China also came up in a conversation between Under Secretary Williams and Steve Schmidt, Amazon's Chief Security Officer (CSO). Schmidt said the biggest problem in corporate security is managing insiders who have been granted approval to access systems, and mentioned China. "An insider could be put in a situation where they can be hijacked by someone else," he said. "One of the methods the Chinese prefer is to find a person who has been granted system access, exploit that person's vulnerabilities to steal their identity, and access the data." Speaking about the importance of the Genesis Mission, Williams stressed, "Protecting secrets is our top priority."
AWS, which hosted the event, stepped forward to actively support the Genesis Mission. On June 30, AWS announced it would expand the AWS Secret Cloud for Industry (ASCI) into the defense sector. "The U.S. defense industry must build the foundation needed to maintain national security and be equipped with tools that match the urgency of the mission," Levy said. "With ASCI, the Department of Defense can use the same trusted secret infrastructure and innovate at the speed it needs."
Original reporting by Kim Chang-young, Washington Correspondent for Seoul Economic Daily.
AI-translated from Korean. Quotes from foreign sources are based on Korean-language reports and may not reflect exact original wording.
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