US-China AI Competition | Who is Winning?

(November 2022) According to the latest Artificial Intelligence (AI) Index Report by Stanford University, in 2021 China continued to lead the world in the number of AI journal, conference, and repository publications—63.2% higher than the United States with all three publication types combined. Another fact from the UN: due to rapid economic expansion and information and communications technology (ICT) investment growth in recent decades, China's ICT sector today is almost as big as the ICT sector in the US. The question that is raised by these trends is — where is China in the AI race with the US?

• Why AI? AI, as the core component of the modern economy based on digital platforms, is becoming the key factor of global competitiveness. The more efficient the AI component, the more added value a digital platform can generate.
• Besides AI journal publications and citations, the US still outpaces China in AI-funding-related indicators. For example, in 2021 the annual private US AI investment exceeded private AI investment in China by 207%.
• In a broader context, the R&D (research and development) investment in the digital sector by US companies exceeds China's R&D investment in the digital sector by 237%. And today there are only two Chinese companies, compared with seven US companies, among the companies worldwide that invest more than $6 billion in the digital sector each year.

Given its faster long-term economic growth, China has the potential to gradually change the balance of global AI power. However, it is highly unlikely that China or any other country will equal the US in AI potential in the near future.