China leads US in AI patent Growth! Can patenting be a good way to go?

Some say that if you want to know how popular AI is, look at the number of patents. According to statistics, the total number of AI-related patents in the world has exceeded 130,000, and the number of AI patents in China has also witnessed a rapid growth. South Korean media reported that The number of AI patents in China was 5.5 times higher than that of the United States, but the more encouraging news is that China’s growth rate was 52 percent, far ahead of the United States’ growth rate of 34 percent.

Such achievements are inseparable from the domestic environment. According to industry sources, 50 percent of China’s investment is related to AI, with more than 1,000 companies in the artificial sector and an investment of $8 billion in AI. Who filed all these patents? Let’s move on.

Global DISTRIBUTION map of AI patents

According to the “Global Artificial Intelligence Development Report (2016)”, the number of AI patents in the world, the United States, China and Japan occupy the top 3 with 26,891, 15,745 and 14,604 respectively, and Germany ranks the fourth. The number of AI patents is only 27% of China’s, and 16.8 of the United States.

As mentioned above, China’s patent growth is far ahead of that of the United States. Based on this, many people only guess that China will surpass the United States in THE number of AI patents. Of course, all this is based on evidence, not groundless evidence.

According to the latest statistics of patent disclosure of various countries, China has already matched the number of patents of the United States.

Earlier, South Korean media also reported that The number of AI patents in China is 5.5 times that of South Korea, a three-fold increase in five years, which is daunting. Either way, it’s good to believe in us, because there’s strength in numbers.

After looking at the global distribution map, let’s take a look at how domestic AI patents are distributed.

Distribution of AI patents in China

As shown in the figure below, there are three major centers of AI patent distribution in the north, which also coincides with the distribution of China’s economy.

Beijing led the way with 7,841, followed by Jiangsu with 6,675 and Guangdong with 5,261.

Who patents AI

Let’s take a look at the TOP5 patent applications from the top 3 countries in the world.

In the United States, IBM leads in patent applications, followed by Microsoft and Google. In Japan, NTT, NEC and Fujitsu filed the largest number of patent applications. In China, universities are the main group applying for AI patents, along with state-owned companies such as State Grid.

Although universities are the main body of AI patent application in China, they should not be shut off from other non-contributors. With the further development of AI technology, there will be more and more DOMESTIC AI companies, and their contribution to the number of AI patents will also become apparent.

For example, Shenzhen-based Giiso, which promotes the application of AI technology in the information industry and has launched writing robots, has always attached great importance to hard power such as patents and Copyrights. After the establishment of the company began to apply for patents and Copyrights of invention technology. With years of research and development experience in pattern recognition, recursive neural network and semantic mining of big data, Giiso has obtained 15 software Copyrights and 4 invention patents so far.

The surge in THE number of AI patent applications represents advances in ARTIFICIAL intelligence, backed by an explosion of AI talent. In China, artificial intelligence has risen to the level of national strategy. With policy support and economic support, the number of AI patents in China is bound to hit a new high.