China Produces 38% of Top AI Researchers Worldwide, but 72% Work in the US: MacroPolo

A new study by the US think tank MacroPolo finds that China accounts for the largest share—38%—of the world's top AI researchers by undergraduate country of origin, yet 72% of them work at institutions in the United States. The findings were published in the updated Global AI Talent Tracker 3.0, which analyzes the origins and affiliations of elite researchers whose papers were accepted at leading AI conferences including NeurIPS 2024, ICML 2024, and ICLR 2025.