Artificial intelligence poses a “bracing test” to the multilateral system, the UK government has warned, as it seeks to align countries including China behind its vision for regulating the technology’s “societal-scale” risks.Speaking to the Financial Times on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York, deputy prime minister Oliver Dowden and foreign secretary James Cleverly defended Britain’s decision to invite China to an AI regulation summit initially described as including only “like-minded countries”.

Dowden said the UK was still “working through” the exact nature of China’s participation in November’s summit at Bletchley Park, a base for British codebreakers during the second world war, but added: “I don’t think we can have meaningful multilateralism without engaging with China.”

In a speech to the UN on Friday, Dowden said the challenge of unleashing AI’s potential while limiting its risks would change relations between nations and require “a new form of multilateralism” because of the “country-sized influence” wielded by some technology companies and non-state actors.