U.S. R&D investment currently accounts for 2.7% of GDP, according to the newest R&D Funding Report put out by AAAS. While the United States still invests the most dollars into R&D globally, there has been a huge uptick in investments among Asian countries. China aims to invest 2.5% of its GDP in R&D by 2020 and is also expected to catch the U.S. in real dollars invested in R&D by 2020 as well.