More than 300 humanoid robots participated in a half-marathon in Beijing last month. One robot developed by Honor completed the race faster than the best human record. Eleven days later, Xi Jinping attended a symposium in Shanghai. The message was strong and clear. He wants to make a transition from ‘Made in China’ to ‘Discovered in China’.
China’s New Tech Leap
For years, the world dismissed China as a copycat economy. Then it became the country that could produce low-cost goods on an enormous scale. Then came the biggest phase, where it dominated everything from buttons to chemicals, and from solar panels to electric vehicles. In 2024, China invested $1.03 trillion in R&D as against the US’s $1.01 trillion when adjusted for purchasing power parity – the first time any country has displaced US dominance in this metric.
The outcomes are showing up, too. China accounts for roughly half of global chemistry patent publications, and has overtaken the US in cancer research output and total scientific publications. In AI, too, the shift is becoming visible. In 2025, more lead authors at the frontier AI conference NeurIPS were based in China than in the US or Europe.
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Now, China is aiming for the next leap. Xi Jinping’s recent speech emphasised “original and disruptive innovation,” signalling a push toward 0-to-1 breakthroughs rather than just 1-to-100 scaling. In other words, China wants to lead in original research and not just commercialising on technologies developed elsewhere. That is a harder transition.
The US Is Still Powerful – But the System Is Under Stress
Its rise matches the US’s post-war journey. The US could bank on three major drivers more than any other country for multiple decades: elite universities, immigrant talent, and deep private capital markets. But several trends are weakening the system.
America’s corporate R&D have turned more inwards. Earlier generations of firms like Bell Labs and IBM Research produced open scientific work, while today they focus on in-house development without sharing the research with the world. In contrast, much of China’s corporate R&D still flows through universities, published research, and state-linked ecosystems.
Trump’s restrictive policies, including a crackdown on immigration and slashing the budgets of the education department, have made the situation worse. This environment has reduced the American attraction, the core factor behind the country’s success in R&D.
India’s Problem Is Not Talent
The Indian scenario is entirely different. It spends low (0.64% of GDP vs. South Korea’s 4.8%, the US’s 3.5% and China’s 2.4%). Despite this, India ranks among the world’s top countries in research publication volume. It has successfully launched one of the cheapest missions to the Moon and Mars. That’s commendable. But it also reflects how much Indian researchers are expected to achieve with limited institutional support.
Further, in both the US and China, the private sector contributes more than 70% of total R&D expenditure, as against 36% in India. That means India is disproportionately dependent on the vagaries of public finance. Whenever funds are short, and they are quite often, research takes a big hit. This creates unpleasant outcomes: underfunded laboratories, procurement delays, weak research infrastructure, lower salaries, and eventually brain drain.
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Why Research Matters
That brings us to an important question: Why does research matter, especially to countries like India?
Economists Allyn Young and Paul Romer showed that investment in research, infrastructure, and human capital compounds over time. Each capability makes the next one easier to build. The US rode this wave after 1945. China did the same a couple of decades ago. India needs to do it now to reap the benefits in the next few decades.
Money is the most important part of research spending. But that’s the first stage. Further layers like quality of output, patents, published research, citations of that research, lab tests, product fit, product market, and an ecosystem that churns these out every year – all matter. Unfortunately, conversations in India revolve around funding, because without it, the next stages become more difficult.
India needs more R&D – not to show off – but to genuinely help the population. The social welfare payoff from basic research in fields such as epidemiology, nutrition, agriculture, and climate could directly shape the lives of hundreds of millions.
Final Take
China not only built factories and achieved economies of scale, but it also focused on skill development, training, strengthening universities, and creating an ecosystem that translated ideas from labs to markets. The journey took time, but it laid the base for China’s technological jump.
As China readies itself for this new leap, India must ensure that it solves its decades-old problems of underfunded labs, delayed stipends, limited university-industry collaboration, and low private R&D investment. Without fixing these, India risks producing talent for the world while steadily weakening its own scientific ecosystem.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of NDTV Profit or its affiliates. Readers are advised to conduct their own research or consult a qualified professional before making any investment or business decisions. NDTV Profit does not guarantee the accuracy, completeness, or reliability of the information presented in this article.
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