Alphabet leads in AI research, Samsung stands out among Korean firms

Alphabet, the parent company of Google, has emerged as the top publisher of highly cited academic papers on artificial intelligence (AI). According to the study by the Georgetown University Center for Security and Emerging Technology, Alphabet is the most dominant, with 3,374 highly cited papers from 2013 to 2023. 

This research positions Alphabet as one of the leading companies in AI technology worldwide. Companies such as Microsoft and Meta occupied the first ten positions on the list of firms ranked according to their citation scores. 

US and Chinese tech giants compete for top spots in AI paper citations

Microsoft came second, while Meta followed in third. This Georgetown University Center report was restricted to the top 10% of papers based on citation counts per year. It applied to any company linked with a cited paper regardless of whether the authorship was shared. 

Chinese firms’ performance was equally remarkable in the AI research output. Tencent, Alibaba, and Huawei came in at the fifth, sixth, and seventh positions, respectively. Huawei has the highest growth rate of 98.2% in the number of accepted papers at top conferences from 2018 to 2021. Alibaba came second with a 53.5% increase, while the average for US firms was between 20%-39%.

Chinese companies have also registered significant progress in patenting in the area of AI. Baidu alone applied for 10,182 patents from 2013 to 2023. As of 2020, the company applied for 228% more patents than in the previous year. Out of the top ten firms in AI patents, four were from China, and IBM was the only firm from the US. 

Samsung electronics emerges as South Korea’s AI research champion

Samsung Electronics is the only South Korean company to be included in the list of the top 100 organisations that have contributed to highly cited AI research. The company was positioned 14th with 293 positions. Samsung was fourth on the list of companies with AI-related patents, with 6,032 applications.

However, Samsung’s growth rate in accepted papers at top conferences was not as high as might be expected, at 39.4% between 2018 and 2021, with little growth in 2020 and 2021. Samsung Electronics has recently posted excellent financial results for the second quarter of 2024. The company saw its net profit rise to $7. 139 billion, a remarkable 471% rise from the same quarter a year earlier.