TLDR: A new report from Digital Science reveals that China has become the world’s foremost power in artificial intelligence research, exceeding the combined output of the United States, United Kingdom, and the European Union. The report also highlights China’s unexpected role as the leading research collaborator for these Western nations, despite geopolitical tensions.
China has definitively surpassed the rest of the world in artificial intelligence research, establishing itself as a global powerhouse in a field increasingly viewed as a strategic national asset. According to a new report by research technology company Digital Science, China’s output in AI research publications in 2024 now equals the combined total of the United States, the UK, and the European Union.
The report, titled “DeepSeek and the New Geopolitics of AI: China’s ascent to research pre-eminence in AI,” was authored by Dr. Daniel Hook, CEO of Digital Science. It analyzes AI research data from 2000 to 2024, showing that AI research has grown at an “impressive rate” globally, from just under 10,000 publications in 2000 to 60,000 in 2024. The report’s key finding is that China leads not only in the volume of research but also in citation attention and influence, commanding over 40% of global citation attention. This rapid ascent has seen China solidify its lead over the rest of the world in the last seven years.
A surprising finding, given the current geopolitical climate, is that China has become the top research collaborator for the US, UK, and EU in the field of AI. This collaboration appears to be a one-way street, with the report noting that China needs less reciprocal collaboration than any of its Western partners.
The foundation of China’s dominance lies in its massive and growing talent pool. The country boasts 30,000 active AI researchers and a large population of students and postdoctoral researchers. This is supported by a widespread innovation ecosystem, with 156 Chinese institutions publishing more than 50 AI papers each in 2024, a stark contrast to the more clustered research hubs in the West.
Dr. Hook stated, “Governments need to understand the local, national and geostrategic implications of AI, with the underlying concern that lack of AI capability or capacity could be damaging from economic, political, social, and military perspectives.” He also noted that China is “massively and impressively” growing its AI research capacity and that its “AI workforce is young, growing fast, and uniquely positioned for long-term innovation.”
While the US still maintains the strongest AI startup scene, the report indicates that China is catching up quickly. Furthermore, China’s dominance extends to the commercialization of research, with the country outpacing the US tenfold in some indicators of patent filings and company-affiliated AI research. This underscores China’s significant capacity to translate academic research into technological innovation.
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Other reports corroborate these findings. Research from the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) shows that between 2019 and 2023, China published 8,672 papers on advanced analytics to the US’s 3,454. ASPI’s data also reveals that all of the top 10 academic institutions for advanced analytics, based on highly cited publications, are in China.
