China has the AI Lead per this study (Patreon)

Back in 2022, a study showed that 47% of the best AI researchers globally were from China.

The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) says that from 2014 to 2023, China made about 70% of all patent applications for generative AI, which is 38,210 cases. This is six times more than the U.S., which had 6,276 cases. Also, by 2023, China had over 4,400 AI businesses. A professor from Seoul National University, Lee Jeong-dong, said, "The issue isn't just one or two companies like DeepSeek appearing, but that there are over 4,000 AI companies all doing different experiments.

India was surprisingly low... but we shall see how it shapes up in 2025

h/t Sanjay for the image