2028 Global AI Capability Map: China-U.S. Gap Narrows, China Leads in Applications

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The 2028 Global AI Capability Assessment report is released, with China and the U.S. continuing to lead global AI competition.

Basic Research: U.S. Leads

In terms of paper publication volume, China has surpassed the U.S. to become globally #1, but citation impact and highly-cited paper counts still favor the U.S. In LLM capabilities, GPT-6 and Claude-4 Ultra maintain top rankings, with Chinese models narrowing the gap with U.S. models from approximately 18 months in 2025 to approximately 12 months.

On the chip front, the U.S. commands approximately 75% of the high-end AI training chip market (NVIDIA H-series), while Chinese domestic chips' share in the inference chip market has risen to approximately 40%.

Application Deployment: China Leads

The Chinese market continues leading globally in AI application deployment speed and scale. In 2028, China's AI industrialization rate (defined as AI-related revenue as percentage of GDP) is approximately 3.8%, significantly higher than the U.S.'s 2.1%. China's application depth in AI-empowered manufacturing (65% coverage), smart cities (82% AI surveillance camera penetration), and mobile payment anti-fraud (99.5% AI interception accuracy) all lead globally.

Investment and Talent

Global AI total investment in 2028 is approximately $380 billion, with the U.S. accounting for approximately 48% and China approximately 32%. On talent, approximately 58% of global AI top talent (h-index top 10%) are in the U.S., with 18% in China.

Competitive Landscape

India, Israel, and the U.K. show regional competitive advantages in specific verticals (IT services, medical AI, fintech), but comprehensive AI capabilities maintain a generation gap with China and the U.S.

Boundary

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