Chinese University Patents Account for Over One-Quarter of Key Technology Inventions, US Research Funding Cuts Intensify Competition Concerns
TechFlow news, August 11, according to Fortune, a National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) study released by Harvard Business School's Josh Lerner team shows that analyzing nearly 14 million Chinese patents reveals Chinese universities account for over a quarter of inventions in 14 key technology areas (including AI, hypersonics, biotechnology, etc.) identified by the Pentagon, 8 times the 3.3% share of US universities, while contributions from large enterprises such as Huawei and Tencent rank secondary. The study also found that the proportion of "disruptive" technical language in Chinese key technology patents has risen from less than 2% in the early 1990s to 16% in 2022, approaching the US level of about 20%, with the patent quality gap narrowing rapidly.
Meanwhile, US federal research funding continues to contract—the Trump administration has terminated over 1,392 NIH grants (involving 539 million USD), and NSF has also canceled or suspended nearly 2,000 projects, with combined cuts and frozen amounts from NIH and NSF exceeding 3 billion USD. In 2024, China's R&D expenditure surpassed the US for the first time (1.03 trillion USD vs 1.01 trillion USD), and since 2004, the average annual growth rate has exceeded 14%, about twice that of the US. Researchers warn that the impact of research funding cuts may take years or even decades to manifest.
