Europe has leapfrogged the US to become China’s biggest research partner in the fields of artificial intelligence, machine learning and big data, according to a new analysis.

From 2011 to 2022, co-publications in these fields grew by more than 1,000%, finds a new policy brief from Reconnect China, an EU-funded project to better understand EU-China relations.

However, around 44% of these co-publications are between China and the UK, rather than current member states. Nine of the top ten universities co-publishing with researchers in China are in the UK. The sole EU university in the top ten is Delft University of Technology, at ninth, with 665 co-publications.

Of the 25 universities in Europe featured in the table of co-publications, 19 are in the UK. When UK universities are excluded from the analysis, Delft takes first place and Rhein Westphalia Aachen University is 25th, with 303 co-publications with Chinese researchers. The analysis also includes Switzerland and Norway in addition to EU countries.

“Measured by co-publications and co-patents, the EU’s science, technology and innovation cooperation with China in big data-related fields is flourishing,” the briefing finds.