British Media: China's AI Research Talent Has Surpassed the United States

On April 30, COURRIER JAPAN cited reports from the British magazine The Economist, stating that the number of artificial intelligence researchers in China has already exceeded that of the United States.

While the United States once held the strongest AI industry in the world, the global technological landscape may undergo significant changes in the near future.

CEO of NVIDIA, Huang Renxun, said: "The U.S. might fall behind China." He posed and answered this question himself during an AI-related Q&A session at the end of 2025.

His response was: "The answer is absolutely yes."

This may sound surprising. For most of the past decade, the United States has firmly led in the AI race, giving rise to a group of outstanding companies pioneering cutting-edge models. American engineers have had ample capital and access to NVIDIA’s state-of-the-art chips.

Yet another equally important factor in innovation must also be considered: people.

China’s volume of academic papers has already surpassed those of Europe and the United States. Until recently, most major AI research was conducted by experts from Western countries. However, this situation is changing.

In 2025, Chinese researchers published a greater number of papers presented at top-tier AI conferences than researchers from the United States and Europe combined.

To better understand international trends in AI talent, we tracked the educational backgrounds of researchers who published papers at the International Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems (NeurIPS) in 2025.

The results show that in 2019, 29% of AI researchers publishing at NeurIPS had begun their careers in China. By 2025, this proportion rose to approximately half. Meanwhile, the share of researchers based in the United States declined from 20% to 12% over the same period.

Moreover, the proportion of Chinese university graduates choosing to study abroad after graduation has also decreased. By 2025, about 60% of researchers continue their studies within China.

Where are America’s talents going?

Among the top ten undergraduate institutions represented at NeurIPS in 2025, nine were Chinese universities. Just Tsinghua University alumni accounted for 4% of NeurIPS participants, while MIT—the top-ranked U.S. institution—accounted for only 1%.

Analysis also reveals how dependent the U.S. AI sector is on Chinese-origin researchers. About 35% of authors in U.S. research institutions hold bachelor’s degrees from Chinese universities, a figure comparable to the number of U.S.-born undergraduates.

However, it should be noted that NeurIPS does not necessarily represent the entire field. Chinese researchers may be more motivated to present at conferences—for example, academic promotions often require a record of conference presentations.

Although China’s open-source model culture encourages researchers to showcase their work on academic platforms, the U.S.’s top-tier talent remains concentrated in secretive startups.

Original article: toutiao.com/article/1863955434781705/

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author.