China Outpacing U.S. in Key Science Metrics.

• Author: Tadjdeh, Yasmin
• Position: Algorithmic Warfare

* China is pulling ahead of the United States when it comes to key indicators of science and engineering prowess, the National Science Board is warning.

"S&E investments and capabilities are growing globally and, in some cases, the growth in other countries has outpaced that of the U.S.," said Ellen Ochoa, chair of the board. The nation is falling behind China in important areas such as growth in research-and-development investment, the manufacturing of critical emerging technologies and patents for innovative systems, according to the National Science Board's "State of U.S. Science and Engineering 2022" report.

"The United States' role as the world's foremost performer of R&D is changing as Asia continues to increase its investments," the study said. "Growth in R&D and S&T output by other countries, including China, outpaced that of the United States. Consequently, even as U.S. R&D has increased, the U.S. share of global R&D has declined, and the relative position of the United States in some S&T activities has either not changed or decreased even as absolute activities increased."

Technologies such as artificial intelligence, quantum information science, microelectronics, biotechnology, robotics and space systems have been highlighted by Congress and the White House as some of the nation's top R&D priorities, Ochoa noted.

China contributed 29 percent of the growth in global research and development between 2000 and 2019, compared to the United States' 23 percent, according to the report.

Beijing is also leading the United States in knowledge-and technology-intensive, or KTI, industry manufacturing, although the United States is the largest producer of KTI services, Ochoa said during a press conference with reporters in January. KTI is defined as industries that globally have high rates of R&D.

Such industries "develop and deploy many of the critical and emerging technologies essential for current and future competitiveness," she said.

There has been tremendous growth in KTI industry manufacturing in China, said Julia Phillips, chair of the National Science Board's Science and Engineering Policy Committee.

"It is an area of concern," she told National Defense. In terms of national security, it is problematic if the manufacturing of certain critical technologies is concentrated in an adversarial country.

For example, the Pentagon has for years been sounding the alarm about the vulnerability of semiconductors. Microelectronics are...