The future is made in China

Updated 23-Aug-2026

See also

• Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning

The future is being made in China. Not all or perhaps even most of the future, but big and important parts. The implications are enormous.

China Shock 2.0

Note: The idea that the success of the Chinese EV industry is just a takeover of western automotive parts manufacturers is missing at least half the story, and is a disservice to both China and the US. We first of all need to understand the whole truth. There has been relentless innovation in the actual assembly of cars, and BYD started as a battery manufacturer in 1995, more than 30 years ago. This indigenous manufacturing excellence (something Elon Musk says no one can compete with) isn't (just) a copy-cat-and-takeover strategy. China is creating cars that are only recently possible for competitors to produce, and most of those are Korean. Japan, the US, and Europe have become caught flat-footed.

Global Renewable Energy & Power Market Share: China (2020–2025)

Sector / Technology	Market Segment / Indicator	2020 Market Share	2025 Market Share	5-Year Dynamics & Trajectory
Solar Photovoltaics (PV)	Module Manufacturing	~85%	~88%	+3% expansion; controls vast majority of global export supply.
	Wafers, Ingot & Cell Capacity	~80%	80%–95%	Up to +15% gain; holds ~95% of global wafer processing capacity.
	Cumulative Installed Capacity	~35.5%	~36.8%	Maintained ~37% share of all operating global solar capacity.
Wind Energy	Equipment Manufacturing (OEMs)	~56%	~78%	+22% shift; Chinese OEMs claim top global supplier positions.
	Annual New Installed Additions	~50%	~77%	+27% growth; accounted for ~130 GW of global additions in 2025.
EV & Battery Storage	Battery Cell Production Capacity	~65%	>80%	+15% expansion; CATL & BYD lead half of global supply.
	Grid Battery Storage Capacity	~35%	~48%	Surged to ~144 GW, comprising nearly half of all global installations.
Hydro Generation	Hydro Turbine Manufacturing	~60%	>70%	+10% increase; dominates international turnkey megaprojects.
Nuclear Power	Reactors Under Construction (Global Share)	~27%	~45%–50%	+18% jump; leads global build pipelines with ~35–37 units under construction.
	Global Electricity Generation Share	~13.5%	~18%	+4.5% gain; second-largest nuclear power producer globally behind the US.
Geothermal Energy	Ground-Source Heat Pumps (Direct Heating)	~30%	~42%	+12% expansion; world's largest market for direct geothermal space heating.
	High-Enthalpy Power Equipment	<5%	~8%	Small share; deep power equipment remains dominated by US, Japanese, and Italian manufacturers.

• Very soon, China will leap ahead to dominate industry in terms of the amount of electricity generated by nuclear power plants

Clean Energy & Power Generation Industry Net Growth

Technology / Sector	2020 Baseline	2025 Level	Net Increase (2020–2025)	5-Year Growth Rate (%)
Solar PV	715 GW	2,383 GW	+1,668 GW	+233%
Wind Energy	743 GW	1,347 GW	+604 GW	+81%
Grid Battery Storage	12 GW	270 GW	+258 GW	+2,150%
Hydropower	1,330 GW	1,469 GW	+139 GW	+10%
Nuclear Power	413 GW	420 GW	+7 GW (net)	+1.7%
Geothermal Energy	15.9 GW	17.2 GW	+1.3 GW	+8.2%

China's Global Market Share in EVs (2020–2025)

Sector / Technology	Market Segment / Indicator	2020 Market Share	2025 Market Share	5-Year Dynamics & Trajectory
Electric Vehicles	Global Electric Car Manufacturing	~45%	~75%	+30% growth; produced ~16.5M out of ~22M electric vehicles worldwide in 2025.
	Global EV Sales Share	~40%	~63%	Represented nearly two-thirds of all global electric car sales by 2025.
	Global EV Exports	~12%	~40%	Surged to 2.5M+ exported units in 2025, capturing over 50% of non-US/EU EV imports.

Transportation segment growth

Industry / Sector	Metric	2020 Baseline	2025 Level	Net Increase (2020–2025)	Growth Rate / Multiplier
Battery Electric Vehicles (BEVs)	Annual Global Sales	2.97M units	20.7M units	+17.73M units/yr	+597% (~7x increase)

China's Global Market Share in Drones and Robotics (2020–2025)

Sector / Technology	Market Segment / Indicator	2020 Market Share	2025 Market Share	5-Year Dynamics & Trajectory
Drones & UAVs	Consumer & Civilian Camera Drones	~75%	>85%	Market dominance driven by DJI and Autel; controls most global COTS hardware sales.
	Commercial & Industrial Drones	~60%	~70%	Widespread adoption across agriculture, infrastructure inspection, and mapping.
	Drone Component Supply Chain	~80%	~90%	Dominates production of flight controllers, gimbals, brushless motors, and battery cells.
Robotics	Annual Industrial Robot Installations	~44%	>70%	Absorbed over 70% of new global factory installations; annual domestic stock surged.
	Industrial Robot Exports	5.9%	~17%	Nearly tripled global export share, transitioning into a net exporter by 2025.
	Humanoid & Service Robot Supply Chain	<10%	~35%–90%	High volume in service units (~35%); controls up to ~90% of global humanoid deployments/parts.

Technology & Industrial Hardware growth

Industry / Sector	Metric	2020 Baseline	2025 Level	Net Increase (2020–2025)	Growth Rate / Multiplier
Robotics	Annual Factory Installations	384k units	610k units	+226k units/yr	+59%
Commercial Drones	Global Market Valuation	~$13.5 Billion	~$24.4 Billion	+$10.9 Billion	+81%

China's Global Market Share in Open-Weight LLMs (2020–2025)

Sector / Technology	Market Segment / Indicator	2020 Market Share	2025 Market Share	5-Year Dynamics & Trajectory
Open-Weight LLMs	Public Open-Weight Model Releases	~15%	~40%	Massive expansion; models like Alibaba's Qwen and DeepSeek captured global open-source mindshare.
	Global Open-Weight Inference Volume	<5%	>45%	DeepSeek and Qwen surged to command over 45% of top global open-source developer token requests.

Open Weight LLM adoption growth

Industry / Sector	Metric	2020 Baseline	2025 Level	Net Increase (2020–2025)	Growth Rate / Multiplier
Open-Weight AI (LLMs)	Global Inference & Adoption Share	<5%	~45%	+40 percentage points	9x–10x expansion