China surpasses the US, leading in research on 90% of 21st-century core technologies.

A new report reveals a dramatic reversal: China now leads the world in research in nearly 90% of critical technologies, pushing the US down to second place in most areas.

According to the Critical Technology Tracker, operated by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI), China is leading in research across 66 out of 74 technologies assessed.

These areas include nuclear energy, synthetic biology, small satellites, and many other emerging technologies that are considered to have the potential to enhance or threaten national interests.

Meanwhile, the US now leads in only eight remaining areas, including quantum computing and geotechnical engineering.

This year's results mark a dramatic shift from the beginning of the 21st century. According to ASPI's comparative data, in the 2000s, the US led in over 90% of the technologies assessed, while China accounted for less than 5%.

Ilaria Mazzocco, a researcher at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington, D.C., stated: "China has made incredible progress in science and technology, evident in both its research and development (R&D) activities and scientific publications."

She argued that China's dominance and advancement in so many areas compared to the US is "very noteworthy."

Wang Yanbo, a science policy researcher at the University of Hong Kong, explains that China tends to focus its efforts on emerging technologies to gain a leading position, rather than trying to compete in traditional areas where other countries already dominate, such as semiconductor chips.

ASPI's analysis team relied on a database of over 9 million global scientific publications. They ranked countries by identifying the top 10% of most cited articles over a five-year period (2020-2024).

A key finding is that China is surpassing the US in the fields of cloud computing and edge computing.

David Lin, a technology strategist in the US, said this reflects "Beijing's urgency to move AI from the lab into real-world deployment" as these are essential infrastructures for training and operating artificial intelligence models.

However, experts also caution against equating the quantity of research with actual production capacity or commercial success.

David Lin cited the example of advanced aircraft engines. Although China is number one in this technology research, "Chinese engines still cannot match the performance, reliability, or durability of leading models from the US or Europe."

Steven Hai, a political economy expert at Xi'an-Liverpool University of Technology (China), also argued that this result should not be interpreted as "the collapse of American power." He asserted that the US remains an important global player.

Furthermore, citation-based measurement methods can offer an advantage to populous countries like China, as researchers tend to cite articles from their compatriots more frequently.

Nevertheless, Jenny Wong-Leung, a data scientist at ASPI, warns that Western nations risk losing "hard-won long-term advantages in cutting-edge science and research" across a range of essential fields.

(VNA/Vietnam+)

Source: https://www.vietnamplus.vn/trung-quoc-vuot-my-dan-dau-nghien-cuu-90-cong-nghe-cot-loi-cua-the-ky-21-post1082814.vnp