China Outpaces U.S. in Critical Technologies, New Report Finds

By Charlie McCarthy | Sunday, December 14, 2025 4:08 PM EST

A new report in Nature reveals China has leapfrogged the United States in nearly 90% of critical technologies that “significantly enhance or pose risks to a country’s national interests,” according to an updated tracker by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI).

The findings, which cover the period from 2020 to 2024, show China leading in 66 out of the 74 technologies tracked — including high-impact areas such as nuclear energy, synthetic biology, and small satellites. In contrast, the United States maintains leadership only in eight technologies, notably quantum computing and geoengineering.

ASPI’s methodology focuses on research performance by analyzing the top 10% most-cited papers in each field, which it uses as a leading indicator of future science and technology capabilities rather than industrial output measured by GDP.

The report also identifies concentrated risk in several emerging areas where China holds a clear lead — cloud computing, edge computing, computer vision, generative AI, and grid integration technologies. In some cases, ASPI assigns a high “technology monopoly risk” rating, signaling that expertise is increasingly clustered within Chinese institutions.

Earlier this year, former U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel and other national security officials warned Congress that China’s rapid advancements in critical technologies could threaten American strategic interests. Their letter stated: “China is making significant strategic investments in basic and applied research and positioning the country to outpace us in critical areas that could determine the outcome of future conflicts. This is a race that we cannot afford to lose.”

Charlie McCarthy, a writer/editor at Newsmax with nearly 40 years of experience covering news, sports, and politics, reported on this development.