There are two things that I feel impacted the US here:

1. the R&D tax credit was gone from 2022 - 2025 thanks to the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act signed in 2017.

2. private equity does not invest in R&D

Private Equity does fund R&D.. mostly the D(evelopment) part. Most R&D, both in the US and China, is not fundamental/basic research.

	▲	tancop 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Product development is one of the first things PE cuts when they get their hands on a company. It's a form of investment and vulture capital hates all investment because their goal is to extract short term profits. The ones really funding research are VCs, governments and founders taking bank loans.