China is projected to graduate almost twice as many STEM Ph.Ds. than the U.S. by 2025, according to a new data brief from researchers at Georgetown Center for Security and Emerging Technology.

“We find that China has consistently produced more STEM doctorates than the United States since the mid-2000s, and that the gap between the two countries will likely grow wider in the next five years,” an executive summary states. “Based on current enrollment patterns, we project that by 2025 Chinese universities will produce more than 77,000 STEM PhD graduates per year compared to approximately 40,000 in the United States. If international students are excluded from the U.S. count, Chinese STEM PhD graduates would outnumber their U.S. counterparts more than three-to-one.”

The researchers wrote that their “findings also suggest the quality of doctoral education in China has risen in recent years, and that much of China’s current Ph.D. growth comes from high-quality universities.”