One group of scientists hailing from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and universities in the US, Israel and China isn't so impressed, having generated a wireless signal clocking in at 2.56Tbps.

ENGADGET: New wireless transmission tech hits 2.56Tbps, leaves WiFi feeling inadequate

Many are going on to teach in Chinese universities, slowing the brain drain that has long had China sending its smartest students abroad, never to return.

FORBES: Plugging A Math Gap

Some of his graduate engineers voice alarm about the rivals pouring out of Asian universities and worry that SSOE does so much business in China.

ECONOMIST: America and China

One of the central debates is whether China has focused too much on a handful of top universities in major cities while failing to improve lower-level education throughout the country.

ECONOMIST: China: A revolution in learning to think | The

Using the lure of cash and high-paying and powerful jobs, including top leadership positions in Chinese universities and companies, Chinese agents scour the world to recruit back to China their lost best and brightest.

FORBES: Can China Eclipse the U.S. on Innovation?

In China, strong math and science backgrounds are prerequisites for admittance to the best universities or to be hired by foreign corporations operating there.

FORBES: Chinese Checkmate: Beating Us At Our Own Game?

It follows reports in the Daily Telegraph newspaper that students from China are being offered places at UK universities with lower grades than home students.

BBC: Willetts warns universities over foreign student grades

The security firm found that in an attempt to hide the origin of the attack, it had been routed through computers in US universities which, the paper said, "matches the subterfuge used in many other attacks that Mandiant has tracked to China".

BBC: New York Times 'hit by hackers from China'