China easily outpacing rest of the world in AI research – report

Just when artificial intelligence (AI) is becoming a strategic asset akin to energy or military capability, a new report says China is massively outpacing the rest of the world in AI research.

The report, titled “DeepSeek and the New Geopolitics of AI: China’s ascent to research pre-eminence in AI,” is authored by Daniel Hook, the CEO of research technology company Digital Science.

The data from Dimensions, the world’s largest and most comprehensive database describing the global research ecosystem, seems pretty impressive.

That’s because the overarching conclusion sounds like this: Chinese AI research outputs reportedly exceed those of the United States, the European Union, and the United Kingdom combined. Now, research coming from China commands more than 40% of global citation attention.

“China has steadily progressed to become the most influential country in global research since 2018. The EU-27 and the US have gradually dropped behind, and the UK has managed to more-or-less preserve its influence,” says the report.

Moreover, China is now dominating AI-related patents – patent filings and company-affiliated AI research show China outpacing the US tenfold in some indicators, underscoring its capacity to translate research into innovation.

More specifically, Hook has analysed AI research data from the year 2000 to 2024, tracking trends in research collaborations and placing these within geopolitical, economic, and technological contexts.

His report says AI research has grown at an “impressive rate” globally since the turn of the millennium – from just under 10,000 publications in 2000, to 60,000 publications in 2024. That’s also why AI is now larger than a mere tech innovation.

“AI is no longer neutral – governments are using it as a strategic asset, akin to energy or military capability, and China is actively leveraging this advantage,” Hook said.

“Governments need to understand the local, national, and geostrategic implications of AI, with the underlying concern that a lack of AI capability or capacity could be damaging from economic, political, social, and military perspectives.”

His findings align with the conclusions of another report. Clarivate, an analytics company, revealed that China is also leading the way in research output across G20 nations.

“Mainland China leads the G20 in research output with nearly 900,000 papers in 2024 – triple its 2015 volume. Over half of these papers involve domestic collaboration, reflecting a shift toward internal partnerships,” said the report.