The United States and China are emerging as the two biggest artificial intelligence superpowers, according to new research.
In its 2026 AI Brain Race Report, essayHumanizer.io ranked over 100 countries on their AI ecosystems across metrics such as AI research and development, economic integration, infrastructure, talent readiness, governance, responsible AI, public opinion, and academic strength.
The study found that the US was the top-performing AI ecosystem overall with a score of 82 out of 100. In particular, America excels at AI R&D (19.15 out of 27.78), economic integration (22.22 out of 22.22) and infrastructure (16.21 out of 16.67).
The US was followed by China, which has an overall AI ecosystem ranking of 59 out of 100. It leads in AI education, with 107 leading AI universities, the most of any country. China also performs well in AI R&D, ranking 17.22 out of 27.78.
While the US is currently the world’s leading AI power, Asian countries are a major source of competition. In fact, 50 per cent of the top-ten AI global powers ranked by essayHumanizer are located in Asia. These include Singapore (37 out of 100), South Korea (35 out of 100), India (32 out of 100) and Japan (29 out of 100).
Despite Asia’s growing global AI dominance, several Western countries still made the top ten. The UK came fifth, with a score of 33 out of 100.
The British AI ecosystem is supported by robust governance, talent readiness, research and development, and 15 top universities for studying AI. But researchers at essayHumanizer note it lacks the AI scale of bigger countries like the US and China.
Other countries that made the top ten include Switzerland (31 out of 100), Canada (30 out of 100) and Germany (28 out of 100).
Overall, essayHumanizer’s research team found that the best-performing countries for AI are building a single AI ecosystem that integrates areas like research, infrastructure, governance and education.
A lead researcher from the company commented: “This is not just a ranking; it’s a forward-looking structural analysis. Our findings show that the countries leading today are not simply ahead in research output.
“They are building integrated AI ecosystems across infrastructure, governance, talent, and economic adoption. Those ecosystems will determine who sets the global standards and direction of artificial intelligence over the next decade.”
