Overshadows the US, which remains a center of new technologies, however
Genetic AI has taken over the tech industry in Silicon Valley and China
Demand for experience and expertise in the artificial intelligence (AI) industry has skyrocketed since late 2022, when OpenAI unveiled the much-talked-about ChatGPT, sending companies and regulators across the globe racing to recruit hard-to-find talent. And while the US and Europe seem to be struggling to find new AI gurus, China has been churning out a large number of industry-leading engineers in recent years. In other words, as the New York Times notes, “China lags behind the US in the artificial intelligence that powers chatbots like ChatGPT, but has a clear lead when it comes to the scientists behind emerging technologies.”
< p>A new survey confirms that China has eclipsed the US as the biggest producer of AI talent, with half of the world's top researchers coming from the country. By contrast, about 18% come from US undergraduate institutions, according to a study by MacroPolo, a think tank run by the Paulson Institute that promotes Sino-US relations.
The findings show a jump for China, from which about 1/3 of the world's top talent came from three years earlier, with the US remaining largely the same. For most of the 2010s, the US benefited as many of China's top minds did their PhDs at US universities and stayed in the country. The research shows that this trend is beginning to change, with Chinese researchers staying home.
What happens in the coming years, however, will be critical for the future as the two countries vie for the lead in AI, a technology that can potentially increase productivity, strengthen industries and drive innovation, transforming researchers in one of the most important geopolitical groups in the world.
Genetic AI has taken over the tech industry in Silicon Valley and China, sparking a funding and investment frenzy, primarily from US tech giants like Google and startups like OpenAI. China, on the other hand, has invested heavily in this education. Since 2018, it has added more than 2,000 AI undergraduate programs, with at least 300 of them at elite universities, says Damien Ma, CEO of MacroPolo.
Researchers of Chinese origin now make up 38% of top AI researchers working in the US, with Americans making up 37%, according to the survey. Three years earlier, the ratio was 27% versus 31%.
The data also shows that the US remains attractive. “We are the world leader in AI because we continue to attract and retain talent from around the world, but especially from China,” notes Peter Abil, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley and founder of Covariant, an AI and robotics startup. , adding that working with Chinese researchers is a given at top American companies and universities.
In the past, US defense officials have not been concerned about AI talent coming from China, in part because many of the bigger projects didn't deal with classified data and partly because they thought it was better to have the best minds available.
Despite the Trump administration's bans on students from China's military universities and the relative slowdown in the flow of Chinese students during the pandemic, the survey showed that a large number of the industry's most promising minds continued to come to the US to study. This month, however, a Chinese former Google engineer was accused of trying to transfer AI technology, including critical microchip architecture, to a Beijing-based company that was secretly paying him.
All of the above suggests that the conundrum for policymakers is a difficult one, as they want to tackle Chinese espionage without discouraging the flow of top Chinese engineers. “Chinese researchers are almost at the forefront of the AI field. If policymakers try to stop them from reaching the US, it's like shooting themselves in the foot,” explains Subbarao Kambabati, a professor at the University of Arizona.
