Western countries are increasingly cautious about sharing technology with China, as the US has recently imposed new restrictions on semiconductor exports and the equipment used to make them. Meanwhile, Chinese companies are climbing among the world’s largest spenders on research and development. As Bloomberg writes, this is a sign that they may no longer need Western technology.

When compiling the same ranking of companies that spent the most on research and development five years ago, the only Chinese company in the TOP-25 was Huawei, which ranked sixth right after Microsoft. Today there are many more Chinese companies in the ranking, and their expenses are huge.

World leaders in research and development

In particular, ByteDance (owner of TikTok), Tencent Holdings (owner of WeChat) and Alibaba Group Holding companies, which are not only engaged in e-commerce but also cloud computing, are mentioned. ByteDance is known to spend $14.6 billion in 2021. At the same time, ByteDance told investors that sales were up 30% in 2022, so research and development spending in 2022 is likely higher as well.

In the last 20 years, companies’ research and development expenditures have increased rapidly. These sums go towards inventing and developing algorithms and artificial intelligence systems rather than physical products, and this is especially true for Chinese companies ByteDance, Tencent and Alibaba, as Bloomberg writes. In the US, most companies have recently announced major layoffs, but this has had little impact on research and development spending.