Carnegie: China Passes US as Top AI Talent Hub, 40.6% to 34.2%
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- China overtook the US as the top destination for elite AI researchers, with its share rising to 40.6% in 2025 from 27.1% in 2022, while the US share fell to 34.2% from 46.4%.
- Out of 100 Chinese-origin researchers at US institutions in 2019, 87 remained in the US by 2025, 10 moved to China, and 3 went elsewhere.
- The 10 who moved to China took significant roles: two founded startups, two became tech executives, five became professors; notably, Yang Zhilin founded Moonshot AI and raised over $1 billion.
- Chinese-origin researchers contributed to 29% of NeurIPS 2019 papers and nearly half of NeurIPS 2022 papers, showing strong contributions to AI research output.