A study earlier this year asserted China has a “stunning lead” in essential technologies. And it wasn't the first time this claim has been made.

But are these claims based in reality? When assessing the global impact and reach of American companies like Amazon, Apple, OpenAI, Boeing, Moderna, Microsoft, and Google, it's not immediately clear the United States is lagging in technological innovation.

But the challenge is understanding exactly how to measure a “technology competition” or “strategic competition.” Typically, competitions involve scores, winners, and losers. But how does one keep score in technology competition? Is it the number of patents, academic publications, leading educational institutions, or multibillion-dollar companies? Or is the appropriate scoring system a more-complex mixture of these, and other, factors?

The competition between the United States and China is a multidimensional contest involving technological, economic, military, and political elements. To accurately assess the United States' standing in this competition, we need to shift our focus from measures (raw numerical data) to metrics, which offer meaningful interpretations of these numbers. This pivot illuminates the contrasts between a free-market economy and a state-driven one.