Has China caught up to the U.S. in AI research? An exploration of mimetic isomorphism as a model for late industrializers

Abstract Artificial intelligence represents a twenty-first century critical technology. We test for and find rapid learning and differentiation characterizing China’s AI development process as a model with a better fit than the Foreign Direct Investment/export-oriented growth of earlier Asian industrializers. China outproduces the U.S.A in both annual and cumulative numbers of AI papers, but quality measures show China lagging the U.S.; even so, China’s AI development is impressive. China and the U.S.A both present a similar structure of citation impact and citation sources from important nations in the world. As for the collaborative structures, China plays a dominant role in AI research with other nations, showing its commitment to indigenous development. While the United States maintains a higher degree of diversity, China is gradually increasing its collaborative diversity from a relatively simple collaboration structure. Applying a measure of China’s chasing of US research, we find the time lag between China and the U.S.A in AI research topics disappeared in 2019 suggesting that China has closed an important gap with the U.S.A and may now be on an independent trajectory.