Claim: China is now #2 in nanotech
From “China Moving Up in Nano World” in Smalltimes: “New findings from Lux Research Inc. say that trends in Chinese nanotech research have set the world’s largest nation on a course to challenge dominant nanotech players like the U.S., Japan, and Germany.
“The company says that China’s nanotech efforts would have broad-reaching implications for issues including energy independence, military capabilities, and development of the domestic high-tech sector.
“In particular, it found that China’s share of academic publications on nanoscale science and engineering topics rose from 7.5 percent in 1995 to 18.3 percent in 2004, taking the country from fifth to second in the world.
“In addition, it found that on an absolute basis, China’s estimated government nanotechnology spending of $250 million in 2005 lags countries like Germany and Japan. But when adjusted for purchasing-power parity — which takes account of China’s far lower infrastructure and labor costs — its spending is second only to the U.S.”
They’re focusing on relatively low-tech applications now, but no one should count on that staying the same. —Christine
November 13th, 2005 at 4:09 PM
I would be fascinated to see an interview with a real, live, successful venture capitalist about this particular meme.
However, I don’t have one of those in my back pocket, so for the moment, I will ask such pointed questions as I am able: Where were these publications drawn from? Where they drawn exclusively from international professional society groups? Or were they drawn also from publications under national control? (This obviously applies not only to China, but to all such “publication count ranking” metrics.)
And on this “purchasing power” meme that’s been going around– just hoe finely tuned is that? I’m sure that you can get more bricks and mortar laid down per dollar in China than in the first world, almost by definition. I am not for a minute convinced that this blunt conversaion factor applies in the same measure to precision equipment or to the salaries of qualified, professional researchers.
(Please also note that another related study I’d raised an eyebrow at, regarding the number of engineering graduates in China vs the United States, has also been placed in doubt because of differences in what China and the United States consider to be propoerly graduated engineers. The comparisons have been apples to oranges, and reported uncritically ever after. Never forget that academic and industry lobby groups agitate reports and numbers like this as a strategy to maintain or increase government funding streams.)
November 14th, 2005 at 5:58 PM
Good points, John. We would need either Lux or Smalltimes to respond. —Christine
November 15th, 2005 at 1:49 PM
Definitely, becaus I am certainly no authority, merely a skeptic.
There’s a careful line to be trod, though– to find someone knowledgeable, even authoritative, who has no vested interest one way or the other. I might almost suggest someone knowledgeable about China in general even without detailed knowledge of nanotech, at least as a sanity check.
November 20th, 2005 at 8:16 PM
I agree. Richard at the softmachines blog thinks they simple tallied every instance of the phrase fragment “nano” in a whatever publication database they used as their source. The heavily biases the count in favour of CNT papers. South Korea may be manufacturing 80% of the world’s CNTs in 4-5 years, but they will still hardly be the breeding ground of more than a sliver of the world’s nanotech economy.
November 20th, 2005 at 9:39 PM
Hey i got some suggestions regarding Novak’s comments. Letme take the example of india and explain this to you. The wipro’s, inforsys, TCS and other softwares majors of india sell software to the west, bring the money to india and use it to get much software development work in banglore than they could have got in say new york. Thus the amount of work extracted per unit of western money in india earned exceeds the work that would have been done by the same money in the west, exactly by the factor of purchasing power parity. Take a case where the purchasing power parity is 10 and assume that 1$ spent on software development gives 1$ worth of work produced. So an indian software company would make 10$ of money for every one 1$ spent. Now this extra money earned can be used for buying anything be it hi-tech equipment or laying bricks. The catch here is that there should be enought talented people in india to help in this conversion. As india builds on infrastructure and educational facilities and as more and more people start working in knowledge based industries that earn foreign capital there is enough money to help make the conversion possible.
November 22nd, 2005 at 2:35 PM
Aviral:
Yes, I’m familiar with that, in principle. I question whether it is quite as simple or as effective as it is often made to sound, though. For instance, while wages may be lower in India, are the prices of the hardware on which the research and development depend also that much lower? Or the facilities?
Also note that software development is the absolute ideal case for this sort of economic exchange, and India is in a better position (by my reading, at least) than China. Nanotechnology is still, fundamentally, a hardware and physical sciences based endeavor, which means there are more infrastructure costs associated with it, and I have much greater faith in India’s published economic and financial data than China’s. I don’t believe the central Chinese government has the ability to gather correct data, at this point.
And finally, I don’t doubt that some of these factors are giving emerging Asian countries a form of competitive advantage– and I hardly begrudge them that. I’m simply a skeptic about the end result warnings and predictions which follow, namely, that unless the United States (or the West, or Europe, or whatever) immediately triple our government research spending budgets, we will all be left in the dust.