A study by the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) analyzing nearly 14 million Chinese patents reveals that Chinese universities contribute more to critical technology patents than state-owned enterprises or government research labs. In artificial intelligence, China has surpassed the United States in annual patent grants since 2020, issuing nearly four times the US volume by 2023, with a cumulative total exceeding 183,000. Quality metrics applied to these critical technology patents show no relative decline compared to US patents despite the sharp increase in volume. DeepSeek, the company behind the low-cost AI model that rivaled top American systems, recruited its engineering talent from the same university system highlighted by the patent data. Export controls on semiconductors may prove insufficient, as China’s innovation engine relies on domestically cultivated human capital.
Source: Read the original article
