A new study shows 65 of the world’s top 100 AI experts are of Chinese origin.
The report comes from ITPO China, part of the UN Industrial Development Organisation, and Shenzhen tech firm Dongbi Data. It was unveiled last week at a Beijing conference.
Out of nearly 200,000 researchers and 100,000 high-impact papers analyzed, half of the top 100 AI brainpower work in China. Another 20 work in the US—but half of those are also Chinese-born, including Carnegie Mellon’s Jun-Yan Zhu. 
The analysis mined data from top journals like the Journal of Machine Learning Research and major AI conferences over the last decade (2015-2024). Impact scores came from the number of papers and citations.
Jun-Yan Zhu, a leading AI professor at Carnegie Mellon, was highlighted in the report’s visuals.
The findings underline the dominant role Chinese-origin researchers play in AI research worldwide.
