China has overtaken the United States in both scientific research output and “high impact” studies, according to a report published by Japan’s National Institute of Science and Technology Policy.

Between 2018 and 2020 China published a yearly average of 407,181 scientific papers, accounting for 23.4% of the world’s research output, The US published 293,434 papers during the same period.

Chinese research comprised 27.2% of the world’s top 1% most frequently cited papers, eclipsing the US’ 24.9%.