This is indicated by the huge expenditures of companies on research and development.
Western countries are increasingly wary of sharing technology with China as the US recently imposed new export restrictions on semiconductors and the equipment used to make them. Meanwhile, Chinese manufacturers are climbing up the rankings of the world’s largest R&D spenders. According to Bloomberg, this is a sign that they may no longer need Western technology.
In the same ranking of companies with the highest R&D spend five years ago, the only Chinese company in the top 25 was Huawei, which ranked sixth just behind Microsoft. Today, there are many more Chinese companies in the ranking, and their costs are huge.
China may no longer need Western technology, according to Bloomberg
In particular, ByteDance (owner of TikTok), Tencent Holdings (owner of WeChat) and Alibaba Group Holding, which is engaged not only in e-commerce, but also in cloud computing, are mentioned. ByteDance is known to have spent $14.6 billion in 2021. At the same time, she told investors that in 2022 revenue grew by 30%, therefore, presumably, her research and development expenses in 2022 were higher.
Over the past 20 years, companies’ spending on research and development has skyrocketed. These sums are used to invent and improve not so much physical products as algorithms and artificial intelligence systems, and this is especially true for China’s ByteDance, Tencent and Alibaba, according to Bloomberg. In the US, most companies have recently announced major layoffs, but this has little effect on R&D spending.
