Two-thirds of global AI investment today goes to China, ballooning the value of China’s AI market by 67% from 2016 to 2017 and threatening to rob the U.S. of its tenuous AI lead, according to a new study from China’s Tsinghua University.
Why it matters: The U.S. and China are jockeying to be an AI superpower, as private investors and governments pour money into research in both countries. The U.S. has a serious talent edge over China for now, but China’s funding advantage keeps it in the running, as top universities like Tsinghua turn out high-quality researchers.
China’s AI talent pool made up just under 9% of the global total, compared to nearly the 14% of AI talent that’s in the U.S.
When it comes to high-level talent — the best of the best — the gap is even wider: China has one-fifth the top talent that the U.S. has.
The U.S. and Japan trail China in number of AI patents, and China leads in the quantity of research papers produced and the number of times they’re cited.
