Innovation power tracks the size of a country’s extreme‑ability tail and total researcher headcount. With ~2.6 million FTE researchers and far more 1‑in‑1,000 cognitive‑ability workers than the U.S., China now leads in areas like solar, batteries, and hydrogen. Because ideas are nonrival, a multipolar science world accelerates progress even if the U.S. claims a smaller share of laurels.
— This shifts U.S.–China debates from zero‑sum IP fears to scale‑driven innovation dynamics and global welfare gains, informing R&D, immigration, and alliance policy.
Thomas des Garets Geddes
2025.10.03
78% relevant
James Jianzhang Liang argues AI’s impact heightens the value of population scale for competitiveness, echoing the idea that a larger extreme‑ability tail and researcher headcount drive innovation output.
Isegoria
2025.09.18
62% relevant
Both argue that scale effects drive innovation: the study finds world population size and connectivity predict advances in military technology, echoing the idea that larger talent pools and scale fuel innovative output.
Alex Tabarrok
2025.09.03
100% relevant
Tabarrok’s estimates: ~770,000 'IQ‑145‑equivalent' workers and 2.6M researchers in China vs ~170,000 and 1.7M in the U.S., alongside NYT data on Chinese clean‑energy patents/citations.
Uncorrelated
2025.03.26
84% relevant
The article explicitly ties national IQ to innovation indices and forecasts a 73% decline in the ≥131 IQ cohort and a drop in the +2SD threshold from 128 to 116 by 2100, concluding global innovation capacity will halve—directly extending the 'extreme‑ability tail drives innovation' thesis with concrete timelines and magnitudes.