China now has three times as many active AI researchers as the US, Nature reports
Digital Science data cited by Nature puts about 51,000 active AI researchers in China against about 14,000 in the United States, with the net flow of talent running from the US to China.
At the NeurIPS 2025 conference, 57% of authors held undergraduate degrees from China — and 69% of those were working in China, up from 57% in 2022.
About 63,000 Chinese students studied mathematics or computer science in the US in 2024–25, roughly 20% fewer than five years earlier.
The US still leads in private AI investment by more than 23 times, and analysts put China 'three to seven months behind the frontier'.
Originally reported by ETC Journal (via Nature). Article compiled by the Deccan Age desk.