Key Points:
- Alphabet and Microsoft lead AI research and produce the most highly cited AI research papers.
- Chinese firms dominate patents, and Baidu and Tencent are ahead in securing AI patents.
- PARAT updates new data on AI jobs, publications, and patents. Companies beyond the ‘big five’ show significant AI research contributions.
- Chinese firms Tencent, Alibaba, and Huawei rank high in quality-adjusted AI research metrics. Amazon and Accenture lead in AI job numbers.
Recent data from the Private-sector AI-Related Activity Tracker (PARAT), run by the Emerging Technology Observatory (ETO), demonstrate AI research updates. US tech giants Alphabet and Microsoft published more highly cited research papers on artificial intelligence (AI) than any other company. Leading Chinese tech firms Baidu and Tencent are the leading in securing patents.
PARAT, which monitors AI trends, has recently received a major update, including data on the number of AI jobs at companies and their publication and patent outputs. AI research, particularly generative models that create text and images, has become a significant business area, prompting governments to consider regulations due to its disruptive potential and safety concerns.
In the AI field, where cutting-edge research occurs both in industry and universities, monitoring commercial activity is crucial. Ngor Luong, an AI investment and corporate activities tracker at the Center for Security and Emerging Technology at Georgetown University, highlights the importance of this commercial monitoring. She notes that companies are at the forefront of AI innovation.
The data reveal that large Chinese firms are highly competitive in AI, even when adjusting for the quality of their work. Zachary Arnold, lead analyst at the ETO, points out that three Chinese tech giants—Tencent, Alibaba, and Huawei—rank among the top ten companies for highly cited AI papers and preprints.
A notable example is the most cited paper in AI research, “Attention is all you need,” published in 2017 by Alphabet subsidiary Google, which introduced the ‘transformer’ architecture underlying many generative AI models. Similarly, a highly cited paper by Tencent researchers, “ICNet for Real-Time Semantic Segmentation on High-Resolution Images,” describes an improved method for object identification in images.
Regarding AI patents, US firms account for only three of the top ten companies in the past decade, with the rest located in China, Germany, and South Korea. Although the Chinese government has long incentivized patenting, recent years have seen efforts to curb excessive patent filings.
The data also highlight the diversity in the AI sector. Beyond the ‘big five’ companies—Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Meta, and Microsoft—firms like OpenAI, Mitsubishi, and Disney rank high in AI research. The updated PARAT data, including LinkedIn’s AI job numbers, shows Amazon leading with 14,000 AI jobs, followed closely by consulting firm Accenture. These large consulting firms now play a crucial role in AI projects for other companies and governments.
