U.S. leadership position slipping in worldwide R&D spending

In fact, the United States has long been the hammer of R&D spending.

Well, a recent report published by Goldman Sachs Global Markets Institute caught our attention.

With the United States and Japan being the traditional leaders in science and technology innovation, the very title of the report, The New Geography of Global Innovation, suggests some not-so-good news.

And sure enough, the paper contains startling and compelling statistics.

For starters, the level of R&D spending in Asia began exceeding levels in the European Union five years ago. At current course and speed, in another five years, Asian investment in R&D is likely to overtake the rate of R&D investment in the United States.

That's primarily due to aggressive investment in China, which over the last 10 years has doubled as a share of GDP.