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China Leads the US in the Research of 37 Out of 44 Critical Technologies, Claims Think Tank

posted by janrinok on Sunday March 05, @07:33AM   Printer-friendly

upstart writes:

China has a "stunning lead" over the US:

The Biden administration might be limiting China's ability to manufacture advanced chips, but according to an independent think tank, the Asian nation is still ahead of the US when it comes to research in 37 out of 44 crucial and emerging technologies, including AI, defense, and key quantum tech areas.

Insider reports that the Canberra-based Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) believes China has a "stunning lead" over the US when it comes to high-impact research across the majority of critical and emerging technology domains.

[...] The think tank notes that for some of these technologies, the ten leading research institutions are based in China and are collectively generating nine times more high-impact research papers than the second-ranked country, which is usually the US. What could be especially worrying for America is that two areas where China really excels are Defense and space-related technologies. ASPI writes that China's advancements in nuclear-capable hypersonic missiles took the US by surprise in 2021.

How is China so far ahead? Some of it is down to imported talent. The report notes that one-fifth of its high-impact papers are being authored by researchers with postgraduate training in a Five-Eyes country (Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States). However, most of China's progress comes from deliberate design and long-term policy planning by President Xi Jinping and his predecessors.

The near-term effects of China's lead could see it gaining a stranglehold on the global supply of certain critical technologies, while the long-term impact could result in the authoritarian state gaining more global influence and power.

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  • (Score: 2) by quietus on Friday March 10, @03:33PM (1 child)

    by quietus (6328) on Friday March 10, @03:33PM (#1295499) Journal

    The first principle is that you must not fool yourself, and you are the easiest person to fool.

    (Richard P. Feynman, as quoted in Statistics Done Wrong (the woefully complete guide) by Alex Reinhart)

    Luckily that doesn't happen all too often :P

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  • (Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday March 15, @05:49PM

    by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday March 15, @05:49PM (#1296287) Journal
    Sounds like you still don't get the problem. The argument you made was that high wages cause automation. This ignores that we can create a high wage environment with a strong disincentive for automation - like California. And we'd still have a strong need for automation even in a low wage environment: for example, extensive numerical computations or global communication.

    Let's consider an example of how California blocks automation: "AB 5" [wikipedia.org] a state law that attempted (and failed) to ban the practice of classifying gig economy workers as contractors. My take is that this was done merely to protect labor unions (and that we'll likely see future efforts to ban gig work). Any automation that significantly displaces workers would also run hard against this political opposition.

    So why would someone developing new automation develop and apply it in California where their efforts could be torpedoed by hostile labor unions?