China’s lead in the battle for AI talent

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  Is it possible that the United States falls behind China?

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  Jensen Huang, the boss of Nvidia, asked himself during a question and answer session

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  about artificial intelligence late last year.

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  The answer is absolutely yes.

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  That may seem surprising.

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  For much of the past decade, America has been comfortably ahead in the AI race,

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  home to the most advanced companies producing frontier models.

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  Its engineers have access to deep pools of capital, as well as a regular supply of NVIDIA's cutting-edge chips.

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  But Mr Huang's concern related to an equally important ingredient of innovation, human talent.

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  Until recently, most leading AI research was produced by experts based in the West.

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  That is changing.

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  In 2025, for the first time, more studies presented at the World's Top AI Conference

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  had lead authors based in China than in either America or Europe.

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  This is not a blip.

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  China is producing more clever young AI researchers than its rivals,

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  and more of them are staying at home than ever before.

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