The global economic center of gravity is shifting decisively toward Asia, yet the long-awaited milestone of China overtaking the United States has vanished from medium-term forecasts, ceoworld.biz reported.
Projections from the Centre for Economics and Business Research (Cebr) place total global output at $227 trillion by 2040. That marks an 83 percent increase in nominal dollar terms from the roughly $124 trillion recorded in 2026.
Just three nations account for 50.6 percent of that massive global total in 2040. The United States leads at $52.9 trillion, followed by China at $47.9 trillion and India at $14.1 trillion.
Cebr’s World Economic League Table, published in December 2025 and covering 190 economies, measures GDP in current US dollars without adjusting for inflation. On this basis, the United States holds roughly 26 percent of world output in 2026 and 23 percent in 2040.
China’s share climbs from 17 percent to 21 percent over the same timeframe. India reaches 6.2 percent, while no other single economy exceeds 3.5 percent of the global total.
The headline that many economic strategists expected has quietly disappeared from the data. China does not overtake the United States in any year through 2040.
The projected gap between the two economic superpowers narrows from $10.7 trillion in 2026 to about $5 trillion. Yet America maintains the top spot throughout the forecast period.
Cebr calls this pattern the receding crossover. Five editions ago, in December 2020, the organization projected that China would claim the world’s largest economy title by 2028.
Several distinct forces drive this continuous revision. China’s population is shrinking and aging, which serves to cap its available labor force.
At the same time, the country’s massive property sector has contracted significantly after acting as an engine of investment for years. Because the league table measures output in current dollars, weaker domestic prices and a softer renminbi also reduce China’s dollar GDP even when real economic activity grows.
India stands as the largest mover among major economies in the new rankings. Cebr places India fourth in 2026 after it surpassed Japan, and projects it will reach third place by 2030.
India’s economy more than triples over the 14-year period, growing from $4.5 trillion to $14.1 trillion. That figure exceeds the combined 2040 output of Germany at $7.8 trillion and Japan at $5.9 trillion.
Indonesia achieves the most notable jump within the top 10. The country climbs from sixteenth in 2026 to eighth by 2040, reaching a projected $4.2 trillion economy that surpasses Italy’s $3.8 trillion.
