The United States and 15 other countries will release a joint statement on Sunday describing a shared vision for a "golden age of science" powered by artificial intelligence, embracing the technology's potential to accelerate discovery rather than constraining it.
The announcement is expected at this year's Science and Technology in Society Forum in Kyoto, Japan, an annual gathering of scientists, executives and policymakers that has run since 2004. NBC News, which reviewed the statement ahead of its release, reports that the document is titled the "Kyoto Vision for a Golden Age of Science" and opens by recognizing the benefits of science and technology to society before encouraging research that integrates AI. For more context on this story, see our ongoing AI news.
What the Statement Says
Notably, the statement refers to the technology as "super intelligence," adopting the terminology of President Donald Trump's recent executive order that renamed the field. "Super Intelligence and new ways of organizing research are opening entirely new frontiers of discovery," the statement reads, according to NBC News. "We recognize the opportunity to take advantage of these changes."
The document also welcomes the "growing field of metascience" — the study of the scientific process itself, including how research is organized, funded and accelerated. That inclusion signals interest not just in AI as a research tool, but in redesigning the institutions of science around it. In practice, metascience efforts tend to focus on measuring and accelerating research itself — faster replication, better peer review, AI-assisted literature synthesis — an agenda that pairs naturally with the statement's enthusiasm for AI-integrated research.
The Executive Order Behind the Language
The vocabulary is no accident. Trump hosted top AI executives for a lunch at the White House on September 29, where he said he would sign an executive order naming AI as "super intelligence," and the order rebrands the technology while signaling potential federal legislative changes. The Kyoto statement's framing flows directly from that renaming exercise, effectively exporting the administration's preferred terminology to a multilateral document signed by 15 other governments.
At the September 29 summit, Trump also called for "tremendous self-regulation" by AI companies, a posture that matches the statement's opportunity-first tone. Where previous international AI gatherings — from the EU's AI Act debates to UN safety briefings — emphasized risk frameworks and guardrails, the Kyoto Vision leans deliberately in the opposite direction.
Kratsios Led the Effort
Michael Kratsios, head of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, spearheaded the vision statement. Tech ministers from Japan, Korea, the United Kingdom and the United Arab Emirates were among the representatives from other countries that endorsed it.
In remarks he plans to deliver at the forum, shared in advance with NBC News, Kratsios will outline a future in which laboratories run by robots and AI systems can design scientific experiments, iterate and analyze results at superhuman speeds.
"Super intelligence applied to science will be an incredible force for democratization of research and breakthrough developments," he plans to say.
Part of a Broader Pro-AI-Science Push
The statement lands amid a burst of activity connecting frontier AI systems to real-world research. Leading AI companies Anthropic and OpenAI have recently launched initiatives to connect biomedical laboratories to powerful AI systems, according to NBC News, while other companies have worked for years to automate laboratory workflows. AI-designed experiments, automated peer review tools and AI co-scientist systems have moved from demos into active pilots across biotech and materials science.
The international framing also marks a contrast with the more contentious AI debates playing out in Washington, where lawmakers have spent recent months sparring over safety guardrails, state-level regulation and the fallout from rogue AI agent incidents. The Kyoto statement instead emphasizes opportunity: faster drug discovery, automated experimentation and a research ecosystem where AI systems propose and test hypotheses alongside human scientists.
What to Watch
The statement is a non-binding vision document, so its practical effect will depend on what the signatory countries do next — from research funding priorities to regulatory postures toward AI-driven science. But its language matters. With 16 countries jointly endorsing a posture that treats advanced AI as an engine for scientific progress, and adopting the US administration's "super intelligence" vocabulary in the process, the statement signals that the pro-acceleration stance championed by the White House now has a multilateral footprint.
Whether that vision survives contact with the safety, copyright and labor fights brewing in domestic politics — in the United States and among its allies — will shape how much of the "golden age" rhetoric becomes reality.
---
Stay Ahead of AIGet the latest AI news, analysis, and breakthroughs — all in one place.
Read more AI news →
