Chinese universities surpass US rivals in AI ranking – and then there is DeepSeek

Peking University has topped a major AI research output ranking, as China solidifies its challenge to America for AI dominance

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Peking University has topped a list of institutions ranked by AI research output, as China’s challenge to America for global AI dominance grows. Photo: Shutterstock

Published: 6:00pm, 3 Apr 2025

A rapid rise in artificial intelligence (AI) research output by Chinese universities over the past three years has seen them surpass their US peers, according to recent data.

And it could go some way to explaining the surprise success of Chinese AI disrupter DeepSeek, which relied on local university graduates to build its powerful AI model at a far lower cost and with less energy than its American counterpart, OpenAI’s ChatGPT.

Peking University has topped a global list of institutions ranked by AI research output since 2022, according to website AIRankings.

Heading up the university’s Institute for Artificial Intelligence as well as its school of intelligence science and technology is Zhu Songchun, an award-winning specialist in computer vision who returned to China from the University of California, Los Angeles in 2020.

In a Peking University forum in January, Zhu, who also founded the Beijing Institute for General Artificial Intelligence, said the narrative of US dominance in science and technology, including AI, had encouraged funding and innovation in the US, while hurting the confidence of other countries.

“Creating world-class technology through Chinese thinking is our goal and our responsibility,” he said. “China is fully capable of taking the initiative in the era of general AI.” He also noted that the country should not simply imitate the West in its AI development.