ASPI’s Critical Technology Tracker ^[1] now covers global research efforts into 74 technologies, giving policymakers, industry and partners the clearest, most current picture of the tech race for strategic advantage. This expanded scope adds 10 technologies identified through extensive consultation and review of Australia’s critical technology strategies and those of its allies.

The tracker measures not a country’s overall strength in critical technologies but its research performance in them. It does so by focusing on high-impact research ^[2], the 10 percent most cited research papers. A country’s five-year performance between 2020 and 2024 is taken as a lead indicator of its future science and technology capability.

The 10 new technologies that have been added to it are key to strategic advantage, including advanced computing and communication, artificial intelligence, and emerging neurotechnologies relevant to human-machine integration. The dataset has also undergone a full refresh to ensure accuracy and comparability.

The updated picture is stark. China’s exceptional gains in high-impact research are continuing, and the gap between it and the rest of the world is still widening. In eight of the 10 newly added technologies, China has a clear lead in its global share of high-impact research output. Four—cloud and edge computing, computer vision, generative AI and grid integration technologies—carry a high technology monopoly risk (TMR) rating, reflecting substantial concentration of expertise within Chinese institutions.

The historical data for these new technologies tells a familiar story: an early and often overwhelming US lead in research output in the opening decade of this millennium, eroded and then outmatched by persistent long-term Chinese investment in fundamental research. In total, China now leads in 66 of the 74 technologies tracked, with the United States leading in the remaining eight—an imbalance that underscores why trusted partners need to act together to leverage comparative advantages, reduce concentration risk and shape the trajectory of critical technologies together.

The US leads in high-impact research in neuroprosthetics (medium TMR) and geoengineering (low TMR). Neuroprosthetics stands out as the only technology in the Tech Tracker with no Chinese institutions in the top 10. The US lead is further strengthened by the fact that the seven institutions with the greatest research effort in this field are all US-based. However, China now holds the lead in research on small satellites, previously a US-led area.

Technology Monopoly Risk (TMR) for the 10 new technologies.

Movers and shakers

For its part, Australia appears in the global top five countries in research effort in seven technologies, although it has recently lost its top-five ranking in critical minerals processing, electric batteries and advanced protection. Within the newly added technologies, two Australian universities make the top 10 lists that rank institutions: the University of Tasmania ranks fourth in research in geoengineering, while the University of Melbourne ranks eighth in neuroprosthetics.

Viewed as a bloc, the European Union remains a significant force, leading in high-impact research in four of the 74 technologies and breaking the US–China dominance. Germany maintains its first place in Europe and is now among the top five countries in 30 technologies (up from 24 when the tracker covered 64 technologies). Italy reaches the top five in 14 technologies, while France does so in four.

The Chinese Academy of Sciences remains the world’s premier technological research institution, ranking first in 31 technologies. It has lost its top spot in quantum sensors and novel antibiotics and antivirals to other Chinese universities but ranks first in two of the 10 new technologies. Among universities, Tsinghua in Beijing has remained on top, placing first in five technologies.

The Helmholtz Association of German Research Centres and the Delft University of Technology (TU Delft) in the Netherlands are Europe’s strongest performers, each appearing in the global top 10 in five technologies. TU Delft distinguished itself by being first in quantum computing for its high-impact research. The United Kingdom has increased the number of technologies it is ranked in the top five countries by four technologies compared to last year. In addition, it ranks in the top five in eight of the 10 new technologies. It now places in the top five in 48 technologies, a huge increase from last year’s 36.

South Korea—a standout performer since the Tech Tracker’s 2023 launch—continues its upward trajectory. South Korea now ranks in the top five in 32 technologies, including five of this year’s additions. South Korea even replaced the US in second position in hydrogen and ammonia for power. By contrast, Japan once ranked among the top five in eight technologies but now only holds that position in four.

India shows significant momentum, now ranking in the top five countries for research effort in 50 technologies (up from 43 last year). Notably, India has overtaken the US as the second-ranked country in five technologies.

Iran remains in the top five in eight technologies, though it has dropped out of the top five in supercapacitors. Its strongest institution is the Islamic Azad University in Tehran. Saudi Arabia has gained ground, now ranking in the top five in five technologies, with King Abdullah University of Science and Technology appearing in the top 10 institutions in three aspects of information and communications technology.

Although Singapore is in the top five countries in researching only two technologies, its institutions perform better than those in many larger states. Nanyang Technological University is the global leader in extended reality and appears in the global top 10 for 14 technologies, making it the strongest institution outside China. In the US, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology is the top performer, ranking in the top 10 in 10 technologies.

ASPI’s newly updated China Defence Universities Tracker ^[3] adds further context to these results. The Tech Tracker shows the areas where China is a global research leader, while the Defence Universities Tracker reveals the relationship between this output and China’s broader defence ecosystem. Together, they offer a clearer, side-by-side view of how China’s research dominance aligns with its civil–military fusion system.

New analytics

In this update, the visuals for the 74 technologies include the complete 2024 dataset, and the two-decade visuals also include preliminary 2025 publications. Further updates are due in early 2026. The full dataset comprises more than 9 million research papers published between 2005 and 2025. After eliminating duplicates across technologies, the dataset is reduced to 7.7 million unique publications.

With the entire dataset, we introduce new visuals for an all technologies overview of how countries and institutions perform, and how they have evolved over the past two decades. We also track talent flow, recording where top researchers completed their undergraduate and postgraduate studies and where they are now employed. Because publication volumes differ significantly across technologies, users will be able to choose to apply an equal weighting across all 74 technologies.

Figure one (below) presents the two-decade trajectory for the top five performers (equally weighted). The picture is consistent with last year: the US, EU and the UK are continuing a downward trajectory, while China and India are expanding their share of global high-impact research.

This update has also introduced an overview of the talent flow of researchers authoring the top 1 percent of most highly cited publications across all technologies covered in the Tech Tracker. The Talent Tracker links authors (for research published between 2020 and 2024) from their Open Researcher and Contributor ID profiles analysing where the researchers behind the top 1 percent and top 10 percent of most highly cited publications are currently working. This shows that the US employs the largest share of top-tier tech talent across both cohorts. Second place is a tight contest between China and EU countries collectively, with China holding a slight edge in the top 1 percent group (shown in figure two). The UK ranks fourth as an employment destination across both talent flows.

What’s new

One of the new additions to this update is brain-computer interfaces (BCIs), technologies that create a direct communication link between the brain and an external device, translating intention into action. This is accelerating rapidly, with commercial devices expected on the market as early as 2030.

Three companies lead globally: Synchron, based in Australia; and Blackrock Neurotech and Neuralink, both based in the US. All three have received the US Food and Drug Administration’s coveted Breakthrough Device ^[4] designation, a key regulatory marker that speeds development and eventual rollout for devices treating serious medical conditions. Synchron stands apart as the only company with a minimally invasive device, inserted through the bloodstream and causing far less trauma to the brain. On 7 November, Australia’s National Reconstruction Fund announced a $54 million investment ^[5] into Synchron—an important signal of national ambition.

As AI becomes further embedded in daily life, BCIs represent the long-imagined interface between humans and machines. The commercial upside is already drawing major players: Apple is exploring BCI integration with iPads and other devices that are close to the consumer, while OpenAI sees the technology as a pathway to develop cognitive AI, systems that emulate human thinking, and learn and adapt inferences on the fly. Among other applications, BCIs could transform the lives of people with severe disabilities. But, as previous ASPI research ^[6] has shown, a technology that allows thoughts to be decoded and actioned by machines would create unprecedented vulnerabilities: privacy intrusions and risks in cognitive freedom and cybersecurity.

Geoengineering, another new technology in the Tech Tracker, introduces a different category of emerging strategic risks ^[7]. Techniques such as injecting aerosols into the stratosphere to dim solar radiation or fertilising oceans to stimulate algae that absorbs carbon dioxide offer tempting technological measures to address climate change. However, their long-term global effects remain poorly understood, and large-scale unilateral interventions could potentially have catastrophic ^[8] consequences. Small-scale trials are already underway in many countries, including Australia ^[9].

Basic research into geoengineering is a small but rapidly growing field that is geographically diversified. While the US enjoys a significant lead, European countries—particularly the UK and Germany—are major contributors. The EU as a bloc collectively outpaces the US in both overall research output and production of high-impact research.

Strategic implications

The tracker’s results reinforce a clear message: governments around the world need to step up investment in research and technology to avoid future strategic dependencies, particularly as one country more than any other continues to outpace the field across a widening set of critical domains. The trajectory of research leadership has remained remarkably stable over the past two years, indicating that incremental or marginal policy adjustments are insufficient to shift the balance.

For partners and allies, greater investment and more coordinated and ambitious collaboration efforts are needed to stay collectively ahead.

To learn more about how to gain access to the expanded tracker, sign up for updates here ^[10].