Fact of the Week: US-Based Scientists Have Published 44 Percent of Recent AI-Related Scientific Articles but Have Been Awarded Only 20 Percent of AI-Related International Patents

Source: Dernis, H., et al, “World Corporate Top R&D investors: Shaping the Future of Technologies and of AI,” OECD EUR 29831 EN, PublicationsOffice of the European Union, Luxembourg, 2019.

Commentary: Innovation can be approximated across many different metrics, which can present very different impressions of where new technologies are being created and utilized. In a new report, the OECD has analyzed the 2,000 companies that invest the most in R&D for their output related to artificial intelligence. It found that Japan was by far the most common location for inventors of AI-related international patents from 2014 to 2016, with 43 percent of the global total, followed by the United States (20 percent), then the European Union, China, and Korea (10 percent each). But it also showed that 44 percent of the authors of AI-related scientific articles released over the same period reside in the United States, followed by the European Union (18 percent), China (9 percent), and Japan (8 percent). This implies that U.S. scientists are excelling at AI-related innovations but struggling to bring those discoveries closer to market.