Global competition in Artificial Intelligence has intensified, but standard cross-country indices can mask important differences in national capabilities. The note assembles comparable metrics to assess preparedness and performance across infrastructure, compute, investment, and adoption. The United States ranks at or near the top of widely cited indices, with the United Kingdom close behind and Italy lowest among G7 members, while China’s position varies substantially by methodology. Overall, the United States retains notable strengths in core enablers such as computing infrastructure and investment conditions, whereas other advanced foreign economies face greater hurdles scaling compute and attracting capital. China has achieved rapid gains in research output and adoption, but its position in enabling infrastructure is less clear.
On physical and digital infrastructure, early and outsized U.S. investments in computing, software, and databases since the mid‑1990s laid the groundwork for leadership in Artificial Intelligence. The United States hosted an estimated 4,049 data centers in 2024, compared with roughly 2,250 in the European Union, 484 in the United Kingdom, and 379 in China. In 2024 alone, the United States added 5.8 gigawatts of data center capacity, versus 1.6 gigawatts in the European Union and 0.2 gigawatts in the United Kingdom, and its installed server base per capita far exceeds peers. At the high end, the United States controls an estimated 74 percent of global Artificial Intelligence supercomputer capacity, compared with 14 percent for China and 4.8 percent for the European Union.
Energy infrastructure is a growing pressure point. Rising Artificial Intelligence workloads are set to drive a sharp increase in data center electricity demand, with one estimate placing global needs at 117 gigawatts by 2028 and another projecting data center consumption more than doubling by 2030, largely concentrated in the United States and China. China’s installed generation capacity, roughly 3,200 gigawatts, already surpasses the United States and the European Union, and China added 429 gigawatts of net capacity in 2024 alone. By contrast, existing U.S. data centers already account for about 8.9 percent of average national energy use, versus 4.8 percent in the European Union and 2.3 percent in China, underscoring risks that U.S. power generation and transmission could lag demand.
Private investment and firm-level research and development further reinforce U.S. leadership. U.S. private investment in Artificial Intelligence far outpaces that of other advanced economies. The United States accounts for the majority of global venture capital investment in Artificial Intelligence‑related data startups and over 75 percent of reported funding in generative Artificial Intelligence ventures. R&D intensity among U.S. information and communications technology hardware and software firms is the highest among major economies. European firms trail especially in software R&D, and while Chinese firms scaled hardware R&D relative to a decade ago, software intensity declined. Complementary evidence indicates a larger share of U.S. firms conduct Artificial Intelligence‑specific R&D for commercial use than peers.
Adoption comparisons are complicated by survey design and weighting, but the United States tends to lead in major private surveys, and employment-weighted measures raise U.S. adoption estimates. Alternative diffusion indicators show only France surpasses the United States in transitions from non‑Artificial Intelligence into Artificial Intelligence occupations, while the United States outpaces advanced foreign economies in incorporating Artificial Intelligence skills in manufacturing and in education, financial, and technology services. Persistent barriers for other advanced economies include limited compute access, skills and training gaps, constrained equity financing for smaller firms, and higher energy costs. Taken together, the evidence points to durable U.S. strengths in core enablers of Artificial Intelligence, ongoing but uneven competition from China, and structural constraints that may limit near‑term gains in other advanced economies.
