China's Domestic AI Talent and Innovation Landscape

How Innovative Is China in AI? (ITIF, 2024) (30 minutes)

• “Introduction”

• “China’s AI Industry and Market”

• “Assessing Chinese Innovation Inputs for AI”

"Several metrics reveal important insights about the current state of Chinese innovation capabilities. In this report, we examine four categories of metrics—research, patents, talent, and infrastructure—to gauge the overall health and potential of the AI ecosystem in China."

Full Stack: China's Evolving Industrial Policy for AI | RAND (2025) (15 minutes)

• Start from “China’s Layered State Support for AI”

Gives an overview of the policies/initiatives to promote AI development from across China’s governance levels and input sectors. 

The Global AI Talent Tracker 2.0 (Paulson Institute, 2023) (15 minutes)

While already slightly outdated (2023) in this fast-moving landscape, this visual piece tracks where global AI talent is educated, works, and publishes top work. It shows that China is already a global top producer of AI talent, and is rapidly climbing on most talent metrics. Notice that while much of that produced talent leaves China to work abroad, China is quickly improving its talent retention rate, reflecting improving incentives for top AI talent to live and work in the PRC.

A conversation about the topology of China’s AI world (30 minutes)

This conversation provides an insightful look into the China’s tech development “deep infrastructure” and tech business/ entrepreneurship culture. It features some powerful heuristics and analogies for understanding China’s AI talent and development world.

Why is China's AI Sector Booming? (CSIS, 2025) (47 minutes)

Useful podcast conversation about China’s AI industry. “In this episode, we discuss China's focus on AI adoption (00:58), the underlying factors driving investor enthusiasm (14:51), and the national security implications of China's booming AI industry (31:47).”

Patents and National Power | ChinaTalk Podcast on Spotify (2025)

This interview breaks down China's IP theft and protection schemes. China engages in large-scale tech IP theft as a matter of national strategy; however, it also genuinely innovates, and has a strong domestic patent system, selectively applied to its domestic innovators.

DeepSeek’s Lessons for Chinese AI (Asianometry, 2025) (17 mins)

Compares DeepSeek’s early corporate policies to other PRC corporate cultures and firm behavior, R&D practices, and innovation.