At first, I must say I definitely do not know enough about Asia's history. This questions is purely based on observation and I am only a curious 18 year old.
With that being said, we all know that Asians found the formula of gunpowder, knew how to make paper or print before anyone else. I am curious about the period in-between that and the 20th century digital revolution(we all can agree Japan had a great contribution).
The question struck my mind while thinking mainly about Maths, Physics, etc. We know about Lagrange, Fermat, Euler, Riemann, Newton, Faraday, Tesla, Einstein, Darwin, Watt, Planck and many other European mathemathicians, chemists, physicists, biologists, but I don't believe I've heard of any other major Asian "scientist" in 12 years of school(I strictly mean school curriculum).
Why wasn't there any?(or maybe, if they existed, why aren't we taught about them?)
As a P.S.: I don't try by any means to sound racist or to claim that europeans were superior or similar stuff. I am just genuinely curious, and again sorry if it is a simple answer. If it is, I must improve my "googling".
Someone asked a similar question, albeit one specific to China, rather than Asia generally. Even so, you'll probably find it interesting, since you mention gunpowder and paper, both which were invented by the Chinese.
u/myplasticlove has some great comments in the thread, along with book references you'll probably want to look into.