Forget DeepSeek. China’s real ‘Sputnik moment’ is happening on campus as American universities lose their advantage

A study analyzing 14 million Chinese patents found that Chinese universities contribute more than a quarter of inventions in critical technology fields like AI and space, indicating innovation is spread widely across parties. The research suggests China's patent boom has converged with or overtaken the quality of U.S. counterparts. Leading open-source models such as DeepSeek, Moonshot, and Z.AI are reported to be competing directly with U.S. frontier labs.