China has overtaken the United States as the country with the highest number of major artificial intelligence (AI) researchers, according to a recent study.
The South China Morning Post reported on September 26, citing a new report from Carnegie China, a research institution of the U.S. think tank Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, that 41% of the world's leading AI researchers were based in China last year, compared to 34% in the U.S.
This marks a significant shift from 2022, when 46% of major AI researchers were in the U.S., while only 27% were in China.
The report suggests that this change reflects a shifting balance of technological power in the ongoing competition between the U.S. and China for leadership in advanced technologies, particularly in AI.
Damien Ma, director of Carnegie China, stated, "China has built a robust AI industry centered around companies like DeepMind and Moonshot AI," adding that compensation for AI professionals in China is now comparable to that in Silicon Valley.
China is also leading in the production of AI talent. The report indicates that 57% of the top AI researchers graduated from undergraduate programs in China last year, an increase of 11 percentage points from 2022. In contrast, only 13% of researchers graduated from U.S. institutions.
The proportion of researchers who remain in China after completing their undergraduate studies has also risen, with 69% of AI graduates in China working there last year, up from 57% in 2022.
The report attributes this trend to increased opportunities in China's AI industry and stricter U.S. visa regulations. The U.S. has limited visa issuance for certain Chinese graduate students and researchers linked to institutions associated with China's so-called 'military-civil fusion' strategy, citing concerns over technology leaks. Similarly, China has tightened exit regulations for its citizens to prevent potential threats to industrial and technological security.
Despite these challenges, the U.S. remains a key destination for AI researchers seeking opportunities abroad. The proportion of AI researchers in the U.S. who graduated from Chinese universities increased by 4 percentage points last year.
Ma explained that this indicates U.S. companies are still actively seeking to attract top AI talent from China.
This study analyzed approximately 10,280 researchers whose papers were accepted at the 2025 Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems (NeurIPS), a leading global machine learning conference.
* This article has been translated by AI.
Copyright ⓒ Aju Press All rights reserved.