In the Al race, Chinese talent still drives American research

Analysts worry that immigration crackdown could hurt Silicon Valley firms' edge in Al

- Cade Metz and Eli Tan

When Mr Mark Zuckerberg, Meta's chief executive officer, unveiled the company's Superintelligence Labs in June, he named 11 artificial intelligence (AI) researchers who were joining his ambitious effort to build a machine more powerful than the human brain.

All 11 were immigrants educated in other countries. Seven were born in China, according to a memo viewed by The New York Times.

Although many American executives, government officials and pundits have spent months painting China as the enemy of America's rapid push into AI, much of the groundbreaking research emerging from the United States is driven by Chinese talent.

Two new studies show that researchers born and educated in China have for years played major roles inside leading US artificial intelligence labs. They also continue to drive important AI research in industry and academia, despite the Trump administration's crackdown on immigration and growing anti-China sentiment in Silicon Valley.

The research, from two organisations, provides a detailed look at how much the American tech industry continues to rely on engineers from China, particularly in AI. The findings also offer a more nuanced understanding of how researchers in the two countries continue to collaborate, despite increasingly heated language from Washington and Beijing.

In 2020, a study from the Paulson Institute, which promotes constructive ties between the US and China, estimated that Chinese AI researchers accounted for nearly one-third of the world's top AI talent. Most of those Chinese researchers worked for American companies and universities.