Jeremy Neufeld
The role of talent in innovation and power competition
Even with a vastly less efficient or productive innovation ecosystem, a country with a sufficiently large demographic endowment could surpass the United States in economic or scientific output. While there is no one measure for industrial, technological, or scientific “leadership,” China is rapidly advancing in numerous measures and is on track to surpass the United States in many of them, if it has not done so already. Despite lower average educational attainment, China since 2006 has produced more PhDs and master’s degree graduates in STEM fields each year than the United States, and it continues to expand the gap.
As a result of this expanding advanced STEM workforce, China’s production of peer-reviewed scientific papers has grown rapidly. From 2008 to 2018, the number grew by over 7% a year, during which time China surpassed the United States as the world’s largest source of peer-reviewed research.4 These articles are not as high-quality as articles by U.S.-based scientists in terms of impact, but quality is also on the rise: measured by the total number of publications in top natural science journals, China surpassed the United States in 2022. In physical sciences and chemistry, it took the lead in 2021.5 China now also has the most highly cited articles on the Web of Science platform.
Moreover, in 2023, China for the first time surpassed the United States in the top 100 high-intensity science and technology clusters, with 24 to the United States’ 21. In the top 25, however, China only has 1 (Beijing) to the United States’ 8 (San Jose–San Francisco, Boston-Cambridge, Ann Arbor, San Diego, Seattle, Raleigh, Minneapolis, and Pittsburgh).7 These superstar clusters disproportionately drive scientific and technological progress through agglomeration effects, attracting top minds from around the world.
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