As the U.S. and China tussle over trade and technology, American companies maintain a major advantage over their Chinese rivals in a critical area: spending on research and development.
U.S. firms, led by Amazon.com Inc. AMZN -6.33% and Google parent AlphabetInc., GOOGL -4.52% invested more than $5 in R&D for every $1 spent by Chinese companies, according to a new report from PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP, which logged the top 1,000 spenders among publicly traded companies. PwC’s report tracked the year ended June 30.