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There are huge evidence of copying. Some day China can pioneer in science or technology but the current claim about Chinese companies leading AI development is

There are huge evidence of copying. Some day China can pioneer in science or technology but the current claim about Chinese companies leading AI development is ridiculous given the evidence of distillation and the fact that like 95 percent of science that lead to the current state of AI happened in either North America or Europe. To be honest if you want to list academic papers that lead to the current AI models the majority is either done by Google Research or sponsored by Google.

amunozo 2mo ago
What about EVs, solar, or batteries? They are leading these fields for some time.
JSR_FDED 2mo ago
From the Hoover Institution’s analysis of the team behind DeepSeek: “We find striking evidence that China has developed a robust pipeline of homegrown talent. Nearly all of the researchers behind DeepSeek’s five papers were educated or trained in China. More than half of them never left China for schooling or work, demonstrating the country’s growing capacity to develop world-class AI talent through an entirely domestic pipeline. And while nearly a quarter of DeepSeek researchers gained some experience at US institutions during their careers, most returned to China, creating a one-way knowledge transfer that benefits China’s AI ecosystem.” That was from a year ago. Consider that on top of this the country was starved of access to Nvidia chips - and therefore accelerated its development of Ascend chips, and it’s clear they are undeniably leaders in AI research and development. Not the only ones, but the achievements are crystal clear.
- rayiner 2mo ago
  Exactly. China is a real tech power now, just like Japan and Taiwan. The U.S. is ahead in a lot of areas of technology, but China has home grown talent that is taking the lead in other areas. And unlike Japan and Taiwan, China has a much bigger pool to draw from.
  - inigyou 2mo ago
    Which areas of technology is the US ahead of China in? (The last time I said something like this it got [flagged] [dead] and I don't know why)
    - rayiner 2mo ago
      Most of them. Semiconductor fabrication is a big one. Metallurgy in general, with specific application to jet turbines. Aerospace broadly. The Chinese can’t build anything like a 787. Radars and most weapons systems.
XorNot 2mo ago
Okay but I cannot stress this enough: no one cares. It's international politics. The rules are optional, and written on the back of whoever agrees to enforce them. If you're going to run around declaring AI is a strategic advantage vital to national security, then guess what? Stealing it is a great idea. That you stole it is only a problem if it means you're not developing the ability to support that work locally as well, and China seems to be doing very well at building it's local talent and support network. If you ever listen to Russian propaganda, there's a similar theme: every big idea, everything good, all of it was definitely first developed in Russia - only Russians could ever have thought of it. Of course, Russia isn't actually a world leader in any of those things, or able to execute on them. Which is what America is sounding like more and more these days.
- ben_w 2mo ago
  > If you ever listen to Russian propaganda, there's a similar theme: every big idea, everything good, all of it was definitely first developed in Russia - only Russians could ever have thought of it. Of course, Russia isn't actually a world leader in any of those things, or able to execute on them. When I was a kid watching Star Trek VI, I was confused by the line "You've not experienced Shakespeare until you've read him in the original Klingon". And then I learned about how the Klingons (especially in that film) were a stand-in for the USSR.
  - ButlerianJihad 2mo ago
    But that was more of a jab at literary snobs who would tout "Homer in the original Greek" or "Marcus Aurelius in the original Latin" or "Old Testament in the Original Hebrew". It has been such a meme, probably for centuries. Because it was not so long ago when university students were actually conversant in many classical languages such as those.
  - torginus 2mo ago
    I mean, lots of things have been developed in European countries, and said countries either never commercialized the technology well enough, or lost leadership. I'm sure that prior to WW2, Brits would've treated the idea that they could be out-engineered by the Germans with ridicule.
ozgung 2mo ago
In 2017 maybe. This chart shows last year’s Neurips accepted papers by country and institution (top 50). What is missing here is that the papers from American institutions also have mostly Chinese authors. Europe is sliding and Singapore has more papers than Canada. There is a clear trend. https://www.reddit.com/r/accelerate/comments/1pi64q0/papers_at_neurips_2025_categorized_by_country_and/ https://www.reddit.com/r/accelerate/comments/1pi64q0/papers_... US is still winning because of their hardware dominance. Also they have astronomical budgets and much better financing. They throw money at an industry until they win. Whereas China throws lots of (educated) people at it. 38% of top AI researchers today have Chinese education and origin^. And hardware dominance will change in the upcoming years. ^ https://archivemacropolo.org/interactive/digital-projects/the-global-ai-talent-tracker https://archivemacropolo.org/interactive/digital-projects/th...
- darkoob12 2mo ago
  Volume is up because AI generation help writing papers. We should find a better measure of impact. I like to see the same charts on best paper awards.

amunozo 2mo ago

What about EVs, solar, or batteries? They are leading these fields for some time.

JSR_FDED 2mo ago

From the Hoover Institution’s analysis of the team behind DeepSeek: “We find striking evidence that China has developed a robust pipeline of homegrown talent. Nearly all of the researchers behind DeepSeek’s five papers were educated or trained in China. More than half of them never left China for schooling or work, demonstrating the country’s growing capacity to develop world-class AI talent through an entirely domestic pipeline. And while nearly a quarter of DeepSeek researchers gained some experience at US institutions during their careers, most returned to China, creating a one-way knowledge transfer that benefits China’s AI ecosystem.” That was from a year ago. Consider that on top of this the country was starved of access to Nvidia chips - and therefore accelerated its development of Ascend chips, and it’s clear they are undeniably leaders in AI research and development. Not the only ones, but the achievements are crystal clear.

rayiner 2mo ago
Exactly. China is a real tech power now, just like Japan and Taiwan. The U.S. is ahead in a lot of areas of technology, but China has home grown talent that is taking the lead in other areas. And unlike Japan and Taiwan, China has a much bigger pool to draw from.
- inigyou 2mo ago
  Which areas of technology is the US ahead of China in? (The last time I said something like this it got [flagged] [dead] and I don't know why)
  - rayiner 2mo ago
    Most of them. Semiconductor fabrication is a big one. Metallurgy in general, with specific application to jet turbines. Aerospace broadly. The Chinese can’t build anything like a 787. Radars and most weapons systems.

XorNot 2mo ago

Okay but I cannot stress this enough: no one cares. It's international politics. The rules are optional, and written on the back of whoever agrees to enforce them. If you're going to run around declaring AI is a strategic advantage vital to national security, then guess what? Stealing it is a great idea. That you stole it is only a problem if it means you're not developing the ability to support that work locally as well, and China seems to be doing very well at building it's local talent and support network. If you ever listen to Russian propaganda, there's a similar theme: every big idea, everything good, all of it was definitely first developed in Russia - only Russians could ever have thought of it. Of course, Russia isn't actually a world leader in any of those things, or able to execute on them. Which is what America is sounding like more and more these days.

ben_w 2mo ago
> If you ever listen to Russian propaganda, there's a similar theme: every big idea, everything good, all of it was definitely first developed in Russia - only Russians could ever have thought of it. Of course, Russia isn't actually a world leader in any of those things, or able to execute on them. When I was a kid watching Star Trek VI, I was confused by the line "You've not experienced Shakespeare until you've read him in the original Klingon". And then I learned about how the Klingons (especially in that film) were a stand-in for the USSR.
- ButlerianJihad 2mo ago
  But that was more of a jab at literary snobs who would tout "Homer in the original Greek" or "Marcus Aurelius in the original Latin" or "Old Testament in the Original Hebrew". It has been such a meme, probably for centuries. Because it was not so long ago when university students were actually conversant in many classical languages such as those.
- torginus 2mo ago
  I mean, lots of things have been developed in European countries, and said countries either never commercialized the technology well enough, or lost leadership. I'm sure that prior to WW2, Brits would've treated the idea that they could be out-engineered by the Germans with ridicule.

ozgung 2mo ago

In 2017 maybe. This chart shows last year’s Neurips accepted papers by country and institution (top 50). What is missing here is that the papers from American institutions also have mostly Chinese authors. Europe is sliding and Singapore has more papers than Canada. There is a clear trend. https://www.reddit.com/r/accelerate/comments/1pi64q0/papers_at_neurips_2025_categorized_by_country_and/ https://www.reddit.com/r/accelerate/comments/1pi64q0/papers_... US is still winning because of their hardware dominance. Also they have astronomical budgets and much better financing. They throw money at an industry until they win. Whereas China throws lots of (educated) people at it. 38% of top AI researchers today have Chinese education and origin^. And hardware dominance will change in the upcoming years. ^ https://archivemacropolo.org/interactive/digital-projects/the-global-ai-talent-tracker https://archivemacropolo.org/interactive/digital-projects/th...

darkoob12 2mo ago
Volume is up because AI generation help writing papers. We should find a better measure of impact. I like to see the same charts on best paper awards.