China leads in scientific research

[WendyBG]

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-025-04048-7

China leads research in 90% of crucial technologies — a dramatic shift this century

The United States tops the remaining areas in an assessment of 74 technologies.

By * Xiaoying You, Nature, 12 December 2025

China is leading research in nearly 90% of the crucial technologies that “significantly enhance, or pose risks to, a country’s national interests”, according to a technology tracker run by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) — an independent think tank.

The ASPI’s Critical Technology Tracker evaluated high-quality research on 74 current and emerging technologies this year, up from the 64 technologies it analysed last year. China is ranked number one for research on 66 of the technologies, including nuclear energy, synthetic biology and small satellites, and the United States topped the remaining 8, including quantum computing and geoengineering…

The ASPI team based its analysis on a database that contains more than nine million publications from all around the world. It ranked nations in each technology by identifying the top 10% of the most-cited papers produced by researchers in a country over a five-year period, between 2020 and 2024, and calculated that country’s global share.

One noteworthy finding is that China is outpacing the United States in cloud and edge computing… Cloud computing enables artificial intelligence companies to train models and process data without the need for physical infrastructure, whereas edge computing processes data locally… [end quote]

The rise in Chinese scientific research is a national security as well as a Macroeconomic issue. In parallel, the Trump administration has cut thousands of science jobs and reduced the pipeline of talented non-U.S. immigrant students.
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-025-04051-y

Wendy

[pauleckler]

China seems to do a better job gazing into their crystal ball and deciding where to invest. And they follow through with funds. We used to say the same thing about Japan Inc aka MITI.

The west probably does the same thing in awarding research grants especially to universities. But implementation often requires private investment. We do have venture capital firms but too often no one wants to be first.

You can name quite a few areas where China is way ahead. Rare earths, lithium, solar panels, bullet trains. And they compete for leadership in many areas. AI, robotics, biotechnology.

Federal cuts to research slows our participation and eats our seed corn. Researchers who lack research funding (graduate students, post-doctoral fellows) will go elsewhere or change direction. We will lose a few generations of researchers in training. This makes no sense.

We need to do better.