Who Is Winning the AI Race: China, the EU or the United States?
The United States leads the race for global advantage in artificial intelligence, at least for the time being, with China coming in second and the EU lagging behind. But China is poised to challenge U.S. dominance in coming years as it undertakes bold AI initiatives.
Many nations are racing to achieve a global innovation advantage in artificial intelligence (AI) because they understand that AI is a foundational technology that can boost competitiveness, increase productivity, protect national security, and help solve societal challenges. This report compares China, the European Union, and the United States in terms of their relative standing in the AI economy by examining six categories of metrics—talent, research, development, adoption, data, and hardware. It finds that despite China’s bold AI initiative, the United States still leads in absolute terms. China comes in second, and the European Union lags further behind. This order could change in coming years as China appears to be making more rapid progress than either the United States or the European Union. Nonetheless, when controlling for the size of the labor force in the three regions, the current U.S. lead becomes even larger, while China drops to third place, behind the European Union. This report also offers a range of policy recommendations to help each nation or region improve its AI capabilities. The United States leads in AI. However, China is catching up and leads in some areas. In contrast, the European Union is behind both the United States and China in most areas.
