plate 090 · 2022 data

China's research spending rose from 12% to 88% of America's

Gross domestic spending on R&D, billions of current PPP dollars, 2000–2022.

The tech race
  1. 1. China leads research in 57 of 64 critical technologies
  2. 2. China's international patent filings grew sixfold since 2010
  3. 3. Nearly half of top AI researchers studied in China
  4. 4. China's research spending rose from 12% to 88% of America's
  5. 5. China spends more importing chips than crude oil
  6. 6. Four tech giants spent $358 billion on infrastructure in 2025
  7. 7. Two in three working satellites are now Starlinks
  8. 8. Irish data centres now use more power than city homes
  9. 9. Indians now file more patents at home than Germans
  10. 10. India published more science papers than Germany and Britain combined
  11. 11. Brazilians now use Pix more often than all cards combined
  12. 12. Poland's digital service exports grew fivefold in a decade
25×

China's R&D spending grew from $32.9 billion in 2000 to $811.9 billion in 2022 (PPP).

88%

In 2022 China spent $812 billion on R&D, against $923 billion in the US.

4×

China spent four times as much as Japan in 2022, and more than Japan, Germany and South Korea combined ($515 billion).

Source: NSF NCSES, Science & Engineering Indicators 2025, Table DISC-10 (from OECD Main Science and Technology Indicators, July 2024), 2022
the numbers & method
China's research spending rose from 12% to 88% of America's. Source: NSF NCSES, Science & Engineering Indicators 2025, Table DISC-10 (from OECD Main Science and Technology Indicators, July 2024), 2022.
YearChina (bn)United States (bn)Japan (bn)Germany (bn)South Korea (bn)
200033269995419
20102124091418752
2020608730175151112
2021701822183161123
2022812923201175139

Claim types Fact

GERD in current PPP dollars, converted by OECD. Shares of the US (12.3% in 2000, 87.9% in 2022) and the Japan+Germany+South Korea sum are derived by progrss. Some 2022 data preliminary. OECD's March 2026 MSTI release says that on 2024 PPPs China's GERD caught up with and slightly passed the US in 2024 (~102%), but on 2020 benchmark PPPs it was about 90–95%; the result depends on the PPP base: https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/en/data/insights/statistical-releases/2026/03/oecd-overall-rd-growth-stable-government-rd-budgets-decline-and-reorient-towards-defence.html

Published 3 Nov 2026

license this plate

what connects to this

006 power shift China installs more robots than everyone else combined 097 hotter planet Africa formally recycles less than 1% of its e-waste 081 leapfrog India's GitHub developers outnumber China's, Brazil's and Japan's combined