Beware The East Wind

No longer a sleeping giant, China’s technology renaissance might just leave the US trailing in its wake.

To the eyes of the world at least, Silicon Valley is the spiritual and cultural home of technology. Ask someone on the street where China’s equivalent is and you are more likely to be met with a blank stare or an uncertain, drawn-out, “Shenzhen?” Though a reasonable answer, it’s hard to define a physical demarcation of China’s proverbial technological beehive. The reason being, there are as many as 17 national-level innovation demonstration zones with favourable policies to promote innovation. And this is what the US is up against. Perhaps it is a stretch to say that China has the Americans on the ropes in the technology innovation race. But it’s not looking good.

Last year, China filed 1.54 million patent applications; way ahead of the US which filed almost 600,000. While the quality of the patents and the ease in which the patents are obtained obfuscate the reality somewhat, the key takeaway is that China is now playing the west at their own game.

According to Nikkei and Elsevier, China dominates the global ranking of the most-cited research papers published in the 30 hottest technology fields as of early 2019. They have a notable presence in the field of desirable technologies such as efficient semiconductors and batteries, which means that China is making headway in some of the most important game-changers today.