China ranks second in Global AI Innovation Index: report

China is emerging as a global artificial intelligence (AI) powerhouse, second only to the United States, according to a report released on July 8.

Photo shows the venue for the release of the 2020 Global AI Innovation Index Report during the 2021 World Artificial Intelligence Conference in east China’s Shanghai. (thepaper.cn/Zhu Yiyi)

The country moved up one spot in the rankings, according to the 2020 Global AI Innovation Index Report, which was published during the 2021 World Artificial Intelligence Conference held in east China’s Shanghai.

The US was way ahead of the 45 other surveyed countries in AI innovation capacity, with a score of 66.31, said the report co-drafted by the Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China and Peking University.

As the only developing country among the 10 top-ranking countries, China outperformed the other developed countries in this aspect, as it has been accelerating efforts in building data infrastructure, making technological breakthroughs and expanding its talent pool, the report said. South Korea ranked third in the category, followed by Canada, Germany, the United Kingdom, Singapore, Israel, Japan, and France.

In four key indicators, China was deemed excellent in “AI infrastructure,” “AI research and development” and “AI industrial application,” ranking No. 4, No. 3 and No. 3, respectively. But it was in eighth place for “AI innovation resource and environment.”

Infrastructure is essential to AI R&D and application, and China secured first spot in the list of countries in terms of supercomputer centers. As of July 2020, 226 of the country’s supercomputer centers had entered the global top 500 list, twice the number of the US.

In the field of AI R&D, Chinese scholars were the most prolific in the world in 2019, releasing 55,200 AI-related papers, including 3,555 in top academic journals and meetings. A total of 57,600 AI patents were filed and 16,500 were granted, putting them in first place worldwide in both fields.

As a competitive industrial player, China had 823 AI companies with at least ten workers by September 2020, ranking second globally. Chinese AI companies had obtained a total investment of more than $37.7 billion, the world’s second highest.

However, China lagged in AI education. The country was only capable of cultivating 17 top AI scholars for every 1 million university students, while Luxembourg, the world’s No. 1 in this category, was able to train 567.

For every one million Chinese workers, only 290 worked in the AI industry, which was far below the 7,133 AI practitioners in Singapore, which topped this category.