Billionaire Chen Tianqiao, who recently donated $115 million to the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) in the U.S., has incited a heated debate among Chinese scientists.

The donation was "a mix of surprise and regret," said Qiu Zilong, a research fellow at the Institute of Neuroscience in Shanghai, after it was announced on Dec. 7. Around the same time, a remark made by Rao Yi, the president of life sciences at Peking University, went viral.

"Chen Tianqiao has made a mistake by funding Caltech instead of a Chinese institute," he argued. Rao claimed that, compared with the mature and advanced research in the U.S., China's research on biology and neuroscience is still on the rise, and therefore needs more funds.

Qiu said the donation was a private matter and should not be publicly scrutinized, but he hopes it will serve as an incentive to build a more complete and transparent funding system in China.

The U.S. does have a mature donation system, which helps to explain why Chen chose an American institute, most scientists say. Those in China's scientific community also suggested that Chinese entrepreneurs take an active role in funding scientific research projects.