hankyoreh

(Reuters/Yonhap)

The US company Alphabet is the business that has published the most frequently cited academic papers on artificial intelligence (AI), study findings show.

While US Big Tech companies dominated the top rankings, their Chinese rivals were also found to be in hot pursuit.

According to statistics published Monday by the Georgetown University Center for Security and Emerging Technology, Alphabet — including its subsidiary Google — was found to have published 3,374 papers with outstanding citation scores between 2013 and 2023. With this number, it ranked first among companies worldwide.

Seven US companies placed in the top 10, including Microsoft in second place and Meta in third. The analysis was based on the selection of the top 10% of papers with the most citations by year. Credit was given to a particular company if even one of the authors was affiliated with it.

While the US occupied the top spots, China was not far behind as it continued a dramatic growth trend. The three places in the top 10 that were not taken by US companies were held by Chinese ones: Tencent (No. 5), Alibaba (No. 6) and Huawei (No. 7). 

These businesses exhibited faster rates of growth than their US competitors. A look at the rates of increase in the annual average of papers accepted at major conferences between 2018 and 2021 showed Huawei at 98.2%, the highest of all firms in the top 10, with Alibaba in second (53.5%). Meanwhile, US companies saw rates of increase of only 20%-39%. 

China’s prowess was even more distinct when it came to patents. Baidu came in at No. 1 when it came to applications for AI-related patents in 2013-2023, with a total of 10,182. That’s the product of the company maintaining a near-frightening level of growth, as shown in its whopping 228% increase in patents year over year in 2020. Chinese firms including Baidu accounted for four of the spots in the top 10, while the US made up for three of them, with IBM making the cut.

Samsung Electronics was the only Korean firm to place in the top 100. The firm came in at No. 14 in the highly cited articles ranking (293 articles), and No. 4 in patents (6,032 applications). Samsung demonstrated a relatively lower rate of growth compared to other firms. 

Rates of increase in the annual average of papers accepted at top conferences between 2018 and 2021 for Samsung Electronics came to 39.4%. In 2020 and 2021, the rates were as low as 0% and 1.1%, respectively. 

By Lee Jae-yeon, staff reporter

Please direct questions or comments to [english@hani.co.kr]