China narrows scientific research lead held by United States

China and the United States came out equal top across research fronts in 11 major scientific fields, with the US holding a slight advantage in overall performance, according to an annual report released on Wednesday.

The annual report, titled Research Fronts 2025, was published by the Institutes of Science and Development of Chinese Academy of Sciences and the National Science Library of Chinese Academy of Sciences, as well as the global analytics firm Clarivate.

Based on data from highly cited papers published from 2019 to 2024, the report showed that the US ranked first in the research frontier in five fields — Earth sciences, clinical medicine, biological sciences, astronomy and astrophysics, and mathematics — and placed second in the remaining six fields. Overall, its fundamental research activity remains the strongest globally. However, the gap with China is narrowing.

"When considered alongside previous reports, the trend of the US and China advancing side by side is becoming increasingly solidified," the report said, adding that the United Kingdom and Germany forming the second tier, and Canada ranking fifth.

The report highlighted China's distinct leading advantages in the fields of agriculture, plant and animal sciences, ecology and environmental sciences, chemistry and materials science, physics, information science, as well as economics, psychology and other social sciences. In research areas where China is relatively weaker, such as clinical medicine and astronomy and astrophysics, it ranks fourth and fifth respectively, but has shown great improvement compared to the past.

Pan Jiaofeng, president of the Institutes of Science and Development, said the report raises new questions and challenges for the integrated development of science and technology, the economy, society, and various other fields.

"A new round of scientific and technological revolution is surging forward, and the frontiers of scientific research are constantly evolving. Cutting-edge topics such as high-throughput single-cell technologies, dark matter detection, and the deep integration of artificial intelligence into scientific research and engineering practices have drawn widespread attention," he said.

Emmanuel Thiveaud, vice-president of Clarivate, spoke highly of China's progress in cutting-edge scientific research.

"Over the past decades, we have witnessed the tremendous progress China has made and continues to make in research and development," Thiveaud said. "It's not surprising that China is already at the forefront of many parts of research fronts."

Thiveaud highlighted the increasing influence of Chinese scientific research, citing another report released by the analytics firm weeks ago. This report showed that the Chinese mainland continued to rank second in the number of highly cited scholars among around 7,000 scholars, selected based on highly cited papers over the past 11 years.

He emphasized the importance of releasing such annual reports, as they can guide the direction of scientific research and inform policymakers. "The research comes with more process to envision the future of natural and social sciences by identifying the hot and emerging research areas," he said, adding that artificial intelligence has become central to empower these emerging research areas.

Yang Fan, deputy director at the Institutes of Science and Development, echoed Thiveaud's views, highlighting the deep multidisciplinary integration of scientific research.

Across the 11 scientific fields, the report identified 110 active and 18 emerging research fronts, with more than half of the emerging research fronts related to artificial intelligence, especially in clinical medicine and life sciences, Yang said.

Li Shao, a tenured professor at Tsinghua University and director of the university's Institute of TCM-X, expressed his delight at seeing that four of the seven emerging research fronts in clinical medicine are related to the use of large artificial intelligence models in healthcare.

Li highlighted the significant role of artificial intelligence in the targeted treatment of modern diseases and the prevention of major diseases, particularly in the traditional Chinese medicine sector. He emphasized the necessity of targeted algorithms to support research on disease mechanisms, early disease screening and precise treatment, which can accelerate the translation of research results and benefit the public.