The study is based on information retrieved from Reaxys ® , Dimensions and OpenAlex databases for the time period 1996-2022 (Methods, Figure ), which shows China's predominant role in the CS as it covers 41% of the current CS, dwarfing the 11% of the US (Figure ). While China grew exponentially during this period, US participation modestly grew until 2007 and afterwards rapidly dropped (Figure ). In 2013, China became the overall leading contributor. The only other country whose share was systematically increasing is India, but its growth is modest compared with that of China (Figure ). National and collaborative efforts to expand the chemical space