The Chinese Century has begun.

China's economy has surpassed that of the United States to take the title of the world's largest economy, according to recently released figures from the International Monetary Fund.

China has been long projected to eventually overtake the U.S. in terms of sheer economic might, although the timeline was unknown. Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz noted that the World Bank projected it would happen in 2014, and the IMF agrees.

The chart below shows the purchasing power parity of the world's biggest economies. China's 2014 GDP is now estimated at $17.6 trillion, edging out the U.S. by around $200 billion. That gap is expected to grow.

But It's not all bad news. The U.S. economy is still growing, and Chinese growth adds to that.

"The world economy is not a zero-sum game, where China’s growth must necessarily come at the expense of ours. In fact, its growth is complementary to ours. If it grows faster, it will buy more of our goods, and we will prosper," Stiglitz wrote in a column for Vanity Fair.

The U.S. is still ahead by some other metrics, most notably patents, which can be an indicator of innovation. China, however, is gaining ground.