Japan, Israel also seen as potential contenders in AI race dominated by US, China

Artificial intelligence is not a two horse race between the US and China, with countries like Japan, Israel and Britain also in the running, according to a survey of AI professionals.

Around 40 per cent of the professionals believe the US is leading the race in AI adoption, while 32 per cent consider China the leader, according to an EY poll of 126 senior AI professionals from 2,000 public companies.

“In general the US is still leading because of the amount of research the country has put into in AI,” said Chwee Kan Chua, global research director for big data and analytics and cognitive/artificial intelligence at IDC. “Industry-wise, the US is doing a lot in the medical field, a sector where they are definitely leading, and in financial services.”

Yet China is showing absolute advantages in areas such as intelligent video analytics and facial recognition, Chua added. The country has also been leading in the number of AI research papers, with twice as many published than the US, but the quality of the papers lags the US when measured by citation impact, Elsevier’s Scopus database shows.

The Chinese government has made AI a top priority, pledging to build a US$150 billion industry by 2030. The country has also recruited the country’s biggest tech companies including Baidu, Alibaba and Tencent to join a so-called national team to jointly push the AI industry forward.

However, ramped-up efforts by other countries in AI will heat up the competition with easier access to data and growing government investment in innovation and technology, analysts said.