The Australian Strategic Policy Institute’s (ASPI) latest technology tracker paints a bleak picture of the artificial intelligence (AI) and advanced analytics strengths of Western countries compared with China.
Among the metrics the tracker published is a graph showing research papers published between 2019 and 2023, which it used to rank national research performance in advanced data analytics. When ASPI ranked countries based on their share of highly cited publications, it reported that China was first, with a 33.2% share. According to ASPI’s research, China had over twice as many “highly cited publications” compared with the US (14.4%), which was second. The UK came in fourth place, with just 4%, behind India, with 5.4%.
Between 2019 and 2023, China published the most research publications (8,672) on advanced analytics, while the number of papers for the US was 3,454, according to ASPI’s research. The UK’s volume of research publications placed it in seventh, with 719 research papers, behind Italy, with 771.
All of the top 10 academic institutes for advanced analytics, according to ASPI’s measurement of highly cited publications, are in China. The top three are: Chinese Academy of Sciences (first); Huazhong University of Science and Technology (second) and Xidian University (third). The UK’s Imperial College ranked 62nd.
When ASPI looked at the career trajectories of what it deemed as the “most talented cohort of researchers” who published advanced analytics papers, China again topped the league, with 180 undergraduate researchers, compared with the US with 125. For postgraduate researchers, the US was top, with 226 postgraduates, ahead of the European Union (145) in second place. ASPI reported that China came in third, with 88 postgraduates.
The ASPI research categorises advanced analytics as a subset of AI.
The ASPI figures for AI shows that in 2009, the top country for AI algorithm and acceleration hardware, based on its research publications metric, was the US, with 12.5% of research contributed. In 2009, the UK was second, with 2.1%. By 2023, China was the top contributor (29%); the US was second (12%); and the UK had fallen to fourth, with 6%, behind India (9%).
In a tweet posted on X, entrepreneur Arnaud Bertrand, who founded HouseTrip (now owned by TripAdvisor), said: “We’re obviously witnessing an immense seismic shift, at a pace that truly boggles the mind given the overwhelming consensus in the West a mere 10 years ago that China ‘couldn’t innovate’. And maybe that’s the key lesson here: our biases and arrogance seem to have not only hindered our understanding of others, but also impeded our own progress.”
Given the UK’s policy both to attract talent from overseas and its stance on lowering net migration, among the more interesting pieces of data from ASPI is the inflow of top research talent based on where they studied. The UK took in three of China’s top advanced analytics researchers compared with the US, which took in 15, and the EU, which hired eight. Overall, the UK took in six advanced analytics researchers from the US, eight from the European Union and just one from India.
