China Overtakes Japan and Widens Technology Lead Over South Korea in Seoul Assessment

China Moves Ahead in Seoul's Technology Rankings

China has overtaken Japan and widened its technological lead over South Korea in Seoul's 2024 Technology Level Evaluation, reaching 86.8 percent of the capability assigned to the United States. Japan scored 86.2 percent, while South Korea stood at 82.8 percent in the assessment released by the Ministry of Science and ICT.

The evaluation covered 136 core technologies across 11 priority sectors. It placed the United States first, with a benchmark score of 100 percent, followed by the European Union at 93.8 percent. China moved into third place, Japan fell to fourth, and South Korea remained behind both regional competitors.

China had ranked fourth, behind Japan, in the previous evaluation in 2022. Its advance in the latest assessment reflects progress across artificial intelligence, semiconductors, advanced manufacturing and energy systems of the next generation.

The estimated time separating China from American technological leadership was 2.1 years, compared with 2.8 years for South Korea. Those figures put South Korea 0.7 years behind China, alongside a difference of four percentage points in their technology scores.

South Korea faces a sharper challenge in the technologies it considers strategically important. Its number of leading positions fell from 17 in 2022 to six in 2024, with China moving ahead in areas including secondary battery modules, nuclear power of the next generation and advanced biotechnology.

The findings, presented here as of February 27, 2026, bring together several measures of technological competition: government assessments, scientific publication rankings, innovation clusters and the expectations of Korean exporters. Each describes a different part of the growing pressure on South Korea, from research capacity to the ability of companies to compete abroad.

How the Government Measures Technological Capability

The Ministry of Science and ICT conducts its technology evaluation every two years. It examines academic papers, patent filings and expert assessments across fields including construction, transport, aviation, national defense and mechanical manufacturing.

The United States serves as the reference point at 100 percent. The other scores express assessed technological capability relative to that benchmark. The evaluation also estimates a technology gap in years, giving readers another way to understand how far each participant is from American leadership.

The ministry separately examined 50 national strategic technologies. This narrower assessment combined quantitative analysis of research output with qualitative input from 1,180 experts. Quantitative analysis looks at measurable information, while the expert assessment adds judgments about technological capability.

China performed more strongly in this strategic group than in the broader evaluation. It reached 91.3 percent of the American benchmark, ahead of the European Union at 90.5 percent, Japan at 84.9 percent and South Korea at 82.7 percent.

The European Union still ranked second in the wider assessment of 136 technologies. China took second place in the narrower assessment of 50 strategic technologies, showing how the ordering changes when the focus shifts to the fields designated as national priorities.

What Changed Between 2022 and 2024?

China's strategic technology score rose from 86.5 percent in 2022 to 91.3 percent in 2024, an increase of 4.8 percentage points. South Korea improved from 81.7 percent to 82.7 percent, gaining one percentage point over the same period.

The European Union's strategic score moved from 92.3 percent to 90.5 percent, while Japan's fell from 85.2 percent to 84.9 percent. China therefore moved from behind the European Union to ahead of it in this part of the assessment.

The sequence of results and projections shows how the competitive picture has developed:

• 2022: China ranked behind Japan in the broader technology evaluation. In strategic technologies, the European Union scored 92.3 percent, China 86.5 percent, Japan 85.2 percent and South Korea 81.7 percent.
• 2024: China overtook Japan in the broader evaluation and surpassed the European Union in the strategic technology assessment.
• 2025: China led the Nature Index for the second consecutive year, and Shenzhen-Hong Kong-Guangzhou topped the World Intellectual Property Organization's innovation cluster ranking for the first time.
• 2030: Korean businesses surveyed expect China to outperform South Korea across all ten major export industries covered by the survey.

China's lead over South Korea in strategic technology scores widened from 4.8 percentage points in 2022 to 8.6 percentage points in 2024. South Korea made progress, but China's larger increase expanded the distance between them.

South Korea Loses Ground in Strategic Industries

South Korea's leading positions in strategic technologies declined from 17 to six between the two evaluations. China overtook it in secondary battery modules, nuclear power of the next generation, advanced biotechnology and other fields where Korean industry had previously held parity or an advantage.

Artificial intelligence showed a particularly wide gap. Against the American benchmark of 100 percent, China scored 93 percent, the European Union 86.3 percent, South Korea 80.6 percent and Japan 75.8 percent.

China's AI score was 12.4 percentage points above South Korea's. The assessment connects China's advance with substantial investment in machine learning infrastructure, algorithm development and the skilled people needed to develop these technologies.

South Korea remained ahead of Japan in AI, even though Japan ranked above it in the broader technology evaluation. The results show that national strengths vary by field: a country's position across all assessed technologies can differ from its standing in a particular industry.

China's broader approach combines state investment, educational capacity and the scale of its market. South Korea retains specific advantages, including memory semiconductor production and certain manufacturing processes, while facing competition across a wider range of strategic fields.

Semiconductors Show a More Detailed Picture

South Korea continues to lead in memory chip production. China, meanwhile, has made inroads in logic devices, chip design software and manufacturing equipment. The semiconductor contest therefore extends across several different parts of the industry.

Memory chips store information, while logic devices process it. Design software and manufacturing equipment support the development and production of chips. Strength in one part of that chain can sit alongside competitive pressure in another.

Industry data cited in the assessment of China's rise put its share of global semiconductor sales at 9 percent in 2020. China had surpassed Taiwan and was close to Japan and the European Union, each at 10 percent.

A projection based on compound annual growth rates exceeding 30 percent suggested Chinese chip revenue could reach $116 billion by 2024, equivalent to 17.4 percent of global sales. The figure was presented as a forecast; a confirmed result for 2024 was not given.

The comparison illustrates the scale of the anticipated expansion: the projected share of 17.4 percent was almost twice the 9 percent recorded in 2020. For South Korea, the pressure reaches beyond protecting its memory chip advantage to competition in the other technologies needed to design and manufacture semiconductors.

Education and Research Build China's Capacity

China's technological rise rests partly on the size of its science and engineering education base. Analysis from Georgetown University's Center for Security and Emerging Technology found that China leads the world in the proportion of university graduates completing degrees in science, technology, engineering and mathematics, commonly called STEM.

More than 40 percent of Chinese college graduates obtain STEM qualifications, compared with approximately 20 percent in the United States. China's share is therefore more than twice the American share, providing a broad base of people trained in technical subjects.

The 2025 Nature Index placed China first globally for the second consecutive year, ahead of the United States. The index tracks publication in 145 leading scientific journals, offering a view of research output through work published in those journals.

Eight of the world's ten leading research institutions in the index were in China. The Chinese Academy of Sciences led the ranking, while Harvard University in the United States and Germany's Max Planck Society were the two institutions outside China in the top ten.

Springer Nature, the publisher of the index, linked the changing distribution of research strength to China's policies for attracting scientists. It described the shift in these words:

As China expands policies to attract top scientific talent, the shift in research power from the West to Asia has become increasingly evident.

South Korea also improved its position, climbing one place to seventh in the Nature Index. Its strongest movement was in physics, where it rose from sixth to fourth. Those gains occurred alongside the growing concentration of leading research institutions in China.

A Southern Chinese Cluster Takes First Place

Shenzhen-Hong Kong-Guangzhou became the world's leading innovation cluster for the first time in the World Intellectual Property Organization's 2025 Global Innovation Index. It displaced Tokyo-Yokohama, which had held the top position for years.

The southern Chinese cluster accounted for 9 percent of global patent applications and 2.4 percent of worldwide scientific papers. Its strength comes from the different roles played by the three cities across the Pearl River Delta.

Shenzhen contributes a strong private sector, including Huawei and Tencent, which are leaders in research and development spending among Chinese companies. The city has ranked first nationally in international patent applications for 21 consecutive years.

Guangzhou supplies foundational research through 84 universities and national laboratories. Hong Kong acts as a capital hub, connecting the cluster to global venture markets. Together, the cities combine research, corporate development and access to investment.

The 2025 WIPO ranking included venture capital measures, helping propel Shenzhen-Hong Kong-Guangzhou into first place. Venture capital provides investment for developing businesses, adding a commercial dimension to measures based on patents and scientific work.

China had 24 clusters among the world's top 100, compared with 22 for the United States. Its lead therefore extended beyond a single successful region: it also had the largest number of entries in that group.

Korean Exporters Expect Tougher Competition by 2030

The Federation of Korean Industries and Mono Research surveyed 200 businesses across South Korea's ten leading export sectors, including semiconductors, automobiles and electronics. Respondents expected China to outperform South Korea in all ten industries by 2030.

China was identified as South Korea's main export competitor by 62.5 percent of the companies surveyed. The share was expected to rise to 68.5 percent by 2030, an increase of six percentage points.

Respondents also rated national industrial competitiveness using South Korea as the benchmark at 100. China scored 102.2, the United States 107.2 and Japan 93.5. Korean businesses therefore viewed Chinese industry as already ahead of their own on this measure, with the United States rated higher still.

The sector breakdown placed China ahead in steel, regular machinery, secondary batteries, displays and automotive components. The forecast for 2030 extends that perceived advantage across all ten export industries included in the survey.

An unnamed executive describing the pressures identified by domestic businesses pointed to product competitiveness, external risks, weak demand and shortages of technical specialists:

Domestic firms saw deteriorating competitiveness of domestic products, heightened external risk factors, sluggish domestic demand, and a dearth of experts in key technologies like AI as the main obstacles to boosting Korean businesses' competitiveness.

Korean companies identified three policy needs: reducing external risks, building workforce development systems for core industries and expanding investment in future technologies. Their concerns connect technological performance with the people, investment and market conditions needed to turn research into competitive products.

What the Findings Mean for Seoul

The Ministry of Science and ICT described strategic technologies as central to national security and industrial competition. Its response focused on strengthening South Korea's foundational capabilities and extending the uses of technologies in which the country has strengths.

The ministry explained its policy position in the report:

Securing strategic technologies is acting as a key axis for national security and industrial competition. To rapidly reduce the technology gap, policy responses are needed to maximize South Korea's strengths, such as securing foundational capabilities and expanding applications.

The assessment places pressure on Seoul to reconsider how it supports research and industry. South Korea's strategic technology score improved between 2022 and 2024, yet it lost leading positions as China's capabilities advanced faster.

The regional relationship also offers scope for cooperation in technological development and economic integration. The analysis of these trends suggests both countries could benefit from deeper cooperation alongside competition, with South Korea contributing particular industrial strengths and China bringing a broader research and market base.

Global supply chains and geopolitical relationships form part of the stakes. China's estimated technology gap with the United States has narrowed to 2.1 years, its leading innovation cluster has passed Japan's longstanding leader, and its research institutions occupy most of the Nature Index's top ten positions.

South Korea sits between major technological powers while trying to preserve distinct areas of strength. The central challenge is to develop those advantages quickly enough to keep pace with wider advances in China, while responding to the workforce shortages and competitive pressures identified by Korean companies.

Key Points

• China ranked third in Seoul's 2024 technology evaluation at 86.8 percent of American capability, ahead of Japan at 86.2 percent and South Korea at 82.8 percent.
• In 50 national strategic technologies, China scored 91.3 percent, surpassing the European Union at 90.5 percent. South Korea scored 82.7 percent.
• South Korea's leading positions in strategic technologies fell from 17 in 2022 to six in 2024.
• China scored 93 percent in artificial intelligence, compared with South Korea's 80.6 percent, while South Korea retained strength in memory chip production.
• China led the 2025 Nature Index for the second consecutive year and housed eight of its ten leading research institutions.
• Shenzhen-Hong Kong-Guangzhou topped WIPO's 2025 innovation cluster ranking. China had 24 of the top 100 clusters, compared with 22 for the United States.
• A survey of 200 Korean businesses found expectations that China would outperform South Korea across ten major export industries by 2030.