The dreadnought race was about quality as well as numbers

The qualitative race often linked friendly rivals seeking prestige through better ships. British, American, Japanese and Italian firms and engineers shared or refined turbine, boiler and gunnery technology across national boundaries. Curtis turbine designs went to Brown in Britain for refinement, after which Curtis examined the changes. Engineers moving between the firms provided an informal route for technical information, making British developments such as Hood less surprising to American counterparts than a purely national account suggests. Japan's boiler work also fed into this exchange. Germany faced pressure from army spending whenever naval designs grew more expensive. This competition in capability and status ran alongside the Anglo-German contest in hull numbers.