China is now leading research in nearly 90% of the world’s most crucial technologies, marking a sharp shift in global scientific dominance this century, according to an analysis cited by Nature. The findings are drawn from the Australian Strategic Policy Institute’s Critical Technology Tracker, which assesses research strength in technologies considered vital to national interests.
The tracker examined 74 current and emerging technologies in its latest edition, up from 64 last year, and found China ranked first in 66 of them. These include areas such as nuclear energy, synthetic biology and small satellites. The United States led in the remaining eight technologies, including quantum computing and geoengineering. Nature notes that the results underscore a striking transformation in global research leadership.
At the beginning of the 2000s, the balance looked very different. The United States led more than 90% of the assessed technologies, while China accounted for less than 5%, according to the 2024 edition of the tracker referenced by Nature. Researchers say China’s rise reflects sustained investment in science and technology, as well as a surge in high-impact research output and publications.
Experts quoted by Nature describe the scale of China’s dominance as remarkable, even if the overall trend is not unexpected. Analysts suggest the results are partly influenced by the types of technologies being tracked, with China focusing heavily on newer and emerging fields where global leadership is still being contested, rather than more established sectors such as advanced semiconductor manufacturing.
The ASPI analysis is based on more than nine million academic publications worldwide, ranking countries by their share of the top 10% most-cited papers over a five-year period from 2020 to 2024. One notable finding highlighted by Nature is China’s lead over the United States in cloud and edge computing research, areas seen as critical to deploying artificial intelligence at scale.
Despite the shift, researchers caution against interpreting the results as a collapse of American technological power. The United States remains a major global player in many of these fields, and high research output does not always translate into superior engineering, manufacturing capability or commercial success. Nature also reports concerns that democratic nations risk losing long-term advantages in cutting-edge science if current trends continue, even as the tracker’s authors acknowledge limits in using publication data alone to measure overall innovation strength.
