China has emerged because the world’s high producer of generative AI patents, however it’s struggling to show a lot of its concepts into motion due to US export controls and longstanding struggles with its innovation tradition at house.
In July, the UN’s mental property company reported that China had filed greater than 38,000 generative AI patents over the previous decade, greater than all different international locations mixed.
Chinese language corporations and establishments rank within the world high 10 patent holders, together with Tencent, Ping An Insurance coverage, Baidu, and the Chinese language Academy of Sciences, in accordance with information from the World Mental Property Group (WIPO).
4 US corporations are within the high 10, however Silicon Valley and US analysis establishments filed simply 6,276 over the identical interval from 2014-2023. South Korea, in third place, filed 4,155 innovations, adopted by 3,409 from Japan, and 1,350 from India, in accordance with WIPO information.
Regardless of this flurry of exercise, nevertheless, China remains to be behind the US by way of impression as a result of the excessive variety of patents solely tells a part of the story, in accordance with Van Anh Le, an assistant professor in mental property regulation at Durham College in the UK.
“The sheer variety of patents filed or granted is commonly mistakenly seen as a direct indicator of innovation. A excessive quantity of patents could be pushed by elements unrelated to groundbreaking innovation, corresponding to strategic filings, differing nationwide insurance policies, and even non-innovative motives,” Le mentioned. Patents are additionally designed to guard innovation however don’t essentially assure their industrial success, she added.
Regardless of the decrease general variety of patents, US builders have a transparent lead. Stanford College’s 2024 AI Index named the US because the undisputed house of essentially the most “notable AI fashions” up to now, producing 61, in contrast with 21 from the European Union and 15 from China.
The newest AI growth began with Google’s improvement of the groundbreaking “transformer” in 2017 – the neural community structure that underlies generative AI together with its giant language fashions (LLMs) like OpenAI’s ChatGPT. ChatGPT’s launch in 2022 was one other breakthrough – dubbed the “iPhone second” for generative AI by Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang as a result of that was when the problem entered well-liked consciousness.
Whereas ChatGPT has been adopted by dozens of rivals, together with Baidu’s ERNIE bot in China, none appear to have made fairly the identical splash, nevertheless.
Most patents home
Competing with Silicon Valley’s deep pockets and assets has all the time been a problem, however it has turn into tougher since 2022 when the US started imposing export controls on key tech just like the NVIDIA A100 chip that has helped energy the newest AI growth.
“Though China filed essentially the most generative AI patents on the earth, excess of the US, a lot of those Chinese language patents didn’t and had been unable to be translated into forces to assist convey [about] the rise of LLMs and different elementary AI fashions,” mentioned Alex He, a senior fellow on the Heart for Worldwide Governance Innovation (CIGI), a Canadian assume tank.
“It’s because China didn’t have the required huge computational energy, billions and trillions of high-quality information parameters for giant mannequin coaching, which prevented China from with the ability to go along with the technological route of ChatGPT-like mannequin OpenAI has initiated,” he informed Al Jazeera.
Firms like Intel and Nvidia have pivoted to make chips that adjust to US laws for the Chinese language market, however Chinese language corporations themselves are turning to the locally-made Ascend chip collection from Huawei, in accordance with a June report from the US-based National Bureau of Asian Research.
In the meantime, China’s AI industry can also be wanting inward and focusing extra on the home market. He estimated that it has solely filed 2,926 patents abroad, based mostly on China’s historically low price for abroad functions.
He instructed that a lot of China’s high GenAI builders like Tencent, Ping An Insurance coverage, the Chinese language Academy of Sciences, Alibaba, Baidu and ByteDance are primarily targeted on the home market as a part of their general enterprise technique. Firms which might be submitting patents overseas, against this, have already got a presence there, like Huawei, ZTE, and Vivo.
AI in China is changing social media influencers to promote merchandise on-line 👇 pic.twitter.com/RB6MWFOuJt
— Al Jazeera English (@AJEnglish) August 19, 2023
Lots of China’s generative AI patents had been additionally developed for inside use, corresponding to enhancing firm enterprise operations or present apps.
He mentioned solely Baidu, greatest identified abroad for its search engine, has targeted on essentially the most progressive AI analysis and improvement, however for the second, they nonetheless lacked the superior AI chips to catch up, He mentioned.
Generative AI patents, led by China’s personal tech sector are “higher than most” in accordance with He, and pushed by “actual progressive business analysis” to catch up or money in on demand, however he says there has additionally been a longstanding downside of rewarding amount over high quality.
Builders and inventors could also be incentivised to file patents to safe authorities subsidies, safe particular person promotions, or purchase certification for his or her firm as a “nationwide high-tech enterprise”, mentioned Durham’s Le, somewhat than to guard a real innovation.
“The Chinese language authorities sees itself as one thing akin to a large-scale start-up incubator, considering alongside the traces of a state-owned equal of a ‘Y Combinator’ – simply with an outsized heft and a a lot longer-term funding horizon,” Le mentioned, referring to the American startup accelerator that helped launch hundreds of corporations like Airbnb, Coinbase, Dropbox, Instacart and Stripe.
