IS China winning the AI talent race?

There’s no worse feeling than getting dumped in favour of your rival. Aidan Shaw knows it. Jennifer Anniston knows it. Catherine of Aragon knows it. But does the US know it?

We ask because there’s been a steady but quiet stream of top AI experts opting to leave the US for China lately, seemingly reversing a decades-long talent trend. 

So what’s going on?

In one sense, there’s nothing new: powers always compete, whether it’s for coal in the 19th century, oil in the 20th century, or (say) rare earths in the 21st century.

Powers have always competed for talent, too, whether it’s the French luring British chemists in the 19th century, Americans and Soviets enticing German engineers in the 20th century, or (say) Korean firms trying to poach Taiwanese chipmakers today.

Nurturing home-grown talent can take a generation, so parachuting a guru into your lab can be an effective (and sometimes the only) way to get things happening.

So is that what’s now up between the US and China?

Two of the biggest AI names that often pop up are UCLA professor Song-Chun Zhu and IBM/Microsoft’s Guo-Jun Qi. Both earned undergrad degrees in China before racking up PhDs in the US (Qi got two) and working at the top of their fields state-side for years.

But then Zhu stunned his colleagues by taking up prestigious China university roles in 2020, and now Qi has turned heads with his own big China pivot in 2025.

As you might imagine, China’s state outlets have milked these stories, whether as patriots returning to the motherland, experts heralding China’s technological ascent, or both.

And on the tech front at least, there is a real story to tell, with one July report painting a vivid picture with last year’s numbers alone:

• China’s AI researchers published 23,695 articles, versus 6,378 in the US, and
• China’s researchers filed 35,423 AI patents, versus a tenth that number in the US.

Of course, numbers alone are incomplete: US Patent 223,898 (Edison’s light bulb) has probably had a bigger impact than US Patent 6,637,447 B2 (that’s the beer-brella).

But still, it’s a big numerical gap, and it’s getting wider, before you even try accounting for the fact that many of the above US numbers of course feature China-born researchers.

So what’s going on?

At risk of casually cramming decades of complexity into a few lines, Beijing has long made big tech pledges, ranging from China’s 863 Program in 1986, to its 10th and 11th Five-Year Plans (2001-2010) and beyond, all culminating in Xi’s big AI plan in 2017.

Meanwhile, initiatives like its Thousand Talents Plan have used funding and prestige to encourage some of China’s best and brightest to repatriate, while corporate giants have also managed to poach some big names (eg, Google’s Andrew Ng did a stint at Baidu).

And we’ve flagged some of the pull factors above, but Zhu’s office at Peking University, for example, sits on its own little island at the centre of a stream. And from there, he has access to staggering amounts of cash, data, equipment, and talent to drive his research.

Compare that to possible push factors like (say) US funding cuts, toxic DC-university ties, the ‘China Initiative’ against campus espionage, and growing visa scrutiny. These and other measures often have valid aims, but there’s a chilling effect at play, too.

So… does any of this mean China is winning the AI race? 

It’s not that simple. The US retains massive related advantages around chips, certain software, and even capital allocation, as it keeps inventing new tech. China, on the other hand, crushes it when it comes to incorporating existing tech into daily life.

But either way, these two individual, personal relocation decisions above are a reminder that, next time you see headlines about Zuck trying to poach Sam’s nerds with $1B offers, it might be worth zooming out for a bigger picture.

Intrigue’s Take

Our managing editor (JD) once met the world’s greatest living mathematician, UCLA’s Terry Tao. Aside from being a singular mind, the Australian-born Tao is also just a lovely guy. Relaxing in shorts and flip-flops amid walls covered in chalked equations, he was remarkably generous in sharing his time and insights with some random diplomat.

Why are we talking about Tao? Because he sent nerds into a tizzy a few days ago when asked if he’d consider leaving the US now that his funding has been cut. His answer? It depends. And for a mind like Tao to even leave that possibility open should be a big wake-up call for any US lawmaker. He lays out his thoughts here, in case you’re interested.

It’s a wake-up call because, while goals like balancing the budget and tackling espionage are clearly critical, free societies need to be smart in the how: if you’re hacking at the very reasons why the world’s brightest minds want to call you home, maybe it’s time to course-correct.