China is far ahead of other countries in generative AI inventions like chatbots, filing six times more patents than its closest rival, the United States, U.N. data showed on Wednesday.
Generative AI, which produces text, images, computer code, and even music from existing information, is exploding with more than 50,000 patent applications filed in the past decade, according to the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), which oversees a system for countries to share recognition of patents. A quarter of these applications were filed in 2023 alone.
A Booming Sector
“This is a booming area, growing at increasing speed, and we expect it to grow even more,” said Christopher Harrison, WIPO Patent Analytics Manager, to reporters.
Between 2014 and 2023, more than 38,000 generative AI inventions were filed by China, compared to 6,276 by the United States, according to WIPO. Harrison noted that Chinese patent applications covered a broad range of sectors from autonomous driving to publishing to document management.
South Korea, Japan, and India ranked third, fourth, and fifth respectively, with India growing at the fastest rate.
Leading Companies
Among the top applicants were China’s ByteDance – owner of the video app TikTok – Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group, and Microsoft, a backer of OpenAI, the startup behind ChatGPT.
While chatbots with the ability to mimic human discourse are already being widely used by retailers and others to improve customer service, generative AI has the potential to transform many other economic sectors like science, publishing, transportation, and security, Harrison emphasized.
“The patent data suggests this is an area that is going to have a profound impact across many different industrial sectors going forward,” said Harrison. He highlighted the scientific sector where generative AI-created molecules have the potential to expedite drug development.
WIPO expects a further wave of patents to be filed soon and plans to release a future update of the data, possibly using generative AI to illustrate the trend.