Top AI researchers, mainly Chinese, are lured from OpenAI to US firms like Meta with huge pay packages, some exceeding $200 million.The US still attracts AI talent, but China is rapidly growing its AI capabilities, offering competitive opportunities and appealing to national pride.US suspicion towards Chinese talent, visa issues, and grant freezes are influencing researchers’ decisions, potentially shifting AI dominance.China is now the biggest producer of AI talent, generating almost half of the world’s top 20 per cent of AI researchers in 2022. It produced less than a third in 2019, the reference year for the study. Is China the AI king ?

