Bloomberg business columnist Justin Fox has been compiling a ranking of the companies that invest the most in research and development for five years. 

In the most recent report, which includes data from 2022—with the exception of ByteDance, the owner of TikTok, whose data is from 2021—the classic pattern is repeated: the companies that invest the most in R&D are technology, pharmaceutical, and automotive firms. 

However, Fox points out that the gap in spending is widening year by year, with tech companies pulling ahead of the rest. And another characteristic: with the exception of Apple, tech companies focus their R&D investments not on product development, but on algorithms. 

But what catches the columnist's attention the most is that Chinese companies have begun to take more spots among the top 25 companies that invest the most in R&D.