New research from the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) shows that China now leads in 57 of the 64 technologies assessed by the Critical Technology Tracker, which has now been updated to cover the past 20 years.
The tracker measures a country’s performance based on the impactful research it produces, looking specifically at the number of publications its institutions have produced in the top ten percent of cited articles in that particular field.
The data studied came from various disciplines, such as AI, cyber, defense and robotics.
Potential monopolies
From 2003 to 2007, the US led in 60 of the 64 categories, with China picking up three and Japan taking the final category of distributed ledgers. While the US now leads only in small satellites, genetic engineering, quantum computing, vaccines and medical countermeasures, nuclear medicine and radiation oncology, and natural language processing.
Among the things being monitored by ASPI is the potential for monopoly control of a technology by a single nation. The institute identified 24 categories that are “high risk,” up from 14 last year. China leads in all of the newly classified monopoly technologies, and all of them can be considered defense-oriented, such as drones, satellite navigation and radar. The report adds:
“Given the extent to which strategic influence will be determined by technological preeminence, even the US has shown that it needs reliable partners in research, innovation, and industry to maintain an edge over major competitors such as China.”
Elsewhere, India is becoming a bigger player, with a top five position in 45 disciplines. The EU ranks second in 30 technologies across the board and, when measured as a bloc, is reducing monopoly risk by increasing the share of research produced. The UK has dropped out of the top five categories in eight technologies since last year, and now ranks high alone in 36 disciplines overall.
Via The register