its difficult to see from the lens of software and information technology, and open source academia, but physical science is often discovered via experimentation and cant just be brute forced. usually it disseminates as it is adopted into industrial process and is then copied. a lot of scientific discoveries are made due to impulsive-creative intuition

for example: - until the end of ww1 the haber bosch process was confined to germany

- jet engine turbine blades today

- most historically: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_fire , medieval napalm that nobody has been able to replicate even now

Quantity isn't quality.

All I know is that they produce a lot of engineers, while the US produces a lot gender studies majors. I rarely say it, but I do not foresee much that they won't be leaving us sharply behind on soon, other than poverty and homelessness, which we have pretty well covered.