The White House will renew its efforts to bring China into arms control discussions, President Biden’s national security adviser said Friday, and will try to put together a global agreement specifying that artificial intelligence programs can never be used to authorize the use of nuclear weapons without a human being in the decision cycle.

The speech by Jake Sullivan, the adviser, was the first to describe with some specificity Biden’s plans for dealing with a world in which, he said, “the cracks in our post-Cold War nuclear base are substantial.” But the solutions he pointed out were largely aimed at maintaining a nuclear deterrent by supplementing the US-deployed arsenal of 1,550 weapons with new technologies, from conventional precision strike weapons to technological upgrades to the existing nuclear complex, rather than going into renewed arms races.

For the first time, Mr. Sullivan was explicit about the US response to China’s rapid military buildup, which the Pentagon says could see it deploy up to 1,500 nuclear weapons by 2035, a five-fold increase from the “minimum deterrent” it has possessed. for almost 60 years. If Beijing reaches that number, America’s two biggest nuclear adversaries would have a combined force of more than 3,000 strategic weapons, which can reach the United States.

But Mr. Sullivan argued that the US arsenal need not “outnumber the combined total of our competitors” to remain an effective deterrent.

“It is important to recognize that when it comes to the issue of both Russia’s and China’s growing nuclear capabilities, deterrence must be comprehensive,” Mr. Sullivan said. “We believe that in the current context we have the amount and type of capabilities that we need.”

However, his efforts to draw China into arms control talks are unlikely to succeed any time soon. So far, Chinese officials have refused to even discuss deals limiting their work on nuclear weapons. And tensions between the United States and China have remained high after months of bitterness and frozen high-level contacts. While Beijing has come back to the table on some issues, it has taken an even tougher stance on others, complicating the “thaw” in US-China relations that Biden predicted in May. China has questioned Washington’s sincerity in saying it wants a warmer relationship.

Mr. Sullivan said the administration would try to revive arms control discussions among members of the United Nations Security Council who have nuclear weapons, which includes China, and press them to agree on basic issues that may avoiding accidental conflicts, such as advance notice of missile tests. The United States established such agreements with the Soviet Union and renewed them with Russia, but there is no side agreement with China.

Mr Sullivan’s speech, at the annual meeting of the Arms Control Association, a nonpartisan group that advocates nuclear non-proliferation agreements, came at a time when the nuclear order established during the Cold War has been under more pressure than at any time since the 1962 Cuban war. Missile crisis.

China’s buildup comes as North Korea boasts of significant progress in reducing its nuclear warheads, theoretically allowing it to fit them on cruise missiles and other weapons. Sullivan noted that Iran has amassed a large reserve of quasi-weapons grade fuel, a direct result, he charged, of former President Donald J. Trump’s decision to abandon a 2015 deal limiting its nuclear activities.

And Russian officials have been issuing more regular, if usually vague, threats to use tactical nuclear weapons.

“We are under no illusions that achieving risk reduction and arms control measures will be easy,” said Mr. Sullivan. “But we think it’s possible.”

Sullivan said Russia’s decision to suspend provisions of the New START treaty, which expires in early 2026, and cancel other international pacts had eroded the foundations of arms control efforts.

Russia largely walked away from the New START treaty earlier this year and on Thursday the United States announced it would reciprocate, halting inspections of nuclear sites, ceasing to provide information on the movement of weapons or launchers and ceasing to provide data. Telemetry for Ballistic Missile Testing.

But Mr. Sullivan noted that Russia would continue to adhere to the core of the treaty, limiting its strategic warheads to 1,550. After the treaty expires, both sides will need to decide whether to renew the limits.

Mr. Sullivan said a new arms control effort could begin by expanding ballistic missile test-fire notifications among the major nuclear powers. Russia has agreements with the US and China to notify them of ballistic missile test launches, but there is no such agreement between China and the US. Mr Sullivan said an agreement that China would notify the US and other permanent members of the Council Security could be possible.

While fairly basic, such a pact could lead to other agreements between the nuclear powers, including crisis communication channels and restricting the use of artificial intelligence. Mr. Sullivan did not provide many details about the types of limits the administration would pursue, but said a measure could manage nuclear risk by requiring “a human being in the cycle of command, control and deployment of nuclear weapons.”

Artificial intelligence is already at play in some missile defense systems, such as the Patriot, which can be configured to automatically intercept incoming missiles. Increasingly, US lawmakers are concerned about the temptation among many states to use artificial intelligence to determine whether and how quickly to launch nuclear weapons. While that perspective has inspired movie plots for decades, in recent years the real-world challenge has grown more complex.

Artificial intelligence can help detect incoming attacks. But by speeding up decision making, many experts have pointed out, it can also shorten decision times. The president might find out too late that an incoming attack warning was based on bad data, faulty sensors, or misinformation.

However, some countries see some artificial intelligence as a potential deterrent. If a first strike decapitated a country’s leadership, that country’s computers could still carry out a counterattack. President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia often boasts of the nuclear-armed Poseidon torpedo, which can traverse the Pacific Ocean even if the Russian leadership has already been eliminated.

“I can’t speak to all of the contexts and contingencies that we have going forward, but as things stand today, we believe we have what we need,” Mr. Sullivan said.