Physix FrontierPhysix Frontier · News Briefing Card (enbrief · Sep 26, 2026)
Carnegie Report: China's Top AI Talent Share Rises to 40.6%, Overtaking US
KEY FACTS
- A December 3 report from the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace says China has surpassed the United States as the preferred workplace for top AI researchers.
- In 2025, China accounts for 40.6% of top AI talent, while the United States accounts for 34.2%; in 2022, the figures were 27.1% and 46.4%, respectively.
- The study tracked 100 Chinese researchers who were in the United States in 2019, and 87 of them were still in the United States in 2025.
- Of the 10 who left, 2 founded startups, 2 serve as executives at tech giants, and 5 became professors.
- The authors note that Chinese researchers made up nearly half of the authors of papers accepted at NeurIPS 2022.
KEY DATA
40.6%China's share of top AI talent in 2025
34.2%US share of top AI talent in 2025
27.1%China's share in 2022
46.4%US share in 2022
PHYSIX OBSERVATION
The reversal in talent share is a signal, but don't jump to conclusions: 87% of the Chinese researchers in the sample are still in the United States, showing that the US system still has strong stickiness. The real change is that domestic opportunities in China are increasing, and top talent is beginning to return to start businesses and teach. This is good for China's domestic AI industry, while for Silicon Valley it is a chronic bleed, and competition between the two sides will focus more on who can retain and make good use of this group of people.
Source: enbrief original report ↗