The success of DeepSeek’s R1 model was a sign of what can be achieved by a talented team with limited resources. A Stanford analysis found that more than half of the researchers responsible for the breakthrough “never left China for schooling or work,” challenging “the core assumption that the United States holds a natural AI talent lead.”China produces far more top AI researchers than the U.S., according to an analysis of authors at NeurIPS, a top AI conference. Many of them end up working in the U.S., but the share working in China more than doubled between 2019 and 2022, and a new $100,000 price tag on visas for foreign talent may further “hurt the innovation and competitiveness of the U.S. industry,” Subodha Kumar, a professor at the Fox School of Business at Temple University, told TIME last year.