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AI Research Growing Rapidly, According to 2019 AI Index Report

Executives, deans, and policy wonks are betting big on AI
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2019 AI Index Report

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Last December, I applied to the Brew with a write-up of the 2018 AI Index Report, a 94-page research paper written by some of the field's foremost experts. After a year on the job, I'm ready to tackle this year's AI Index Report released yesterday.

The nitty gritty, for my fellow nerds

From 1998 to 2019, the volume of peer-reviewed AI publications grew over 300%. This week, an estimated 13,500 people are attending NeurIPS, a top AI conference...8x the 2012 crowd.

In October 2017, it took three hours to train a machine vision algorithm on a large image dataset. In July 2019? 88 seconds.

"AI specialist" is the fastest growing emerging job of 2019, per LinkedIn.

Who's winning, for my fellow pundits

The U.S. leads handsomely in most AI metrics: investment, private sector activity, talent, and top research. In a recent report, Tortoise Intelligence named the U.S. as AI's "undisputed leader," with a score nearly double China's.

China's competitive advantages include: largest internet market by users, lots of data, and huge state subsidies. A recent Georgetown University report suggests that government investment is tens of billions smaller than we thought. But there's still "a push to indigenize and cut off dependence on foreign suppliers, hardware, software, and talent," the report's co-author, Zach Arnold, told me.

The AI Index's Global AI Vibrancy Tool shows there's plenty of innovation happening all over the world (especially in the EU).

Where's the dough, for my fellow titans of industry

In 2019, global private AI investment topped $70 billion. "AI-related" startups had over $37 billion in investment, $34 billion in M&A activity, and $5 billion worth of IPO exits. More than 10,000 AI companies have been founded since 2015, per Tortoise.

Bottom line: Executives, deans, and policy wonks are betting big on AI. But always beware of techno-optimism takeaways: The autonomous vehicle industry captured almost 10% of all AI investment this year, but we're still waiting on a fully autonomous ride.

Keep up with the innovative tech transforming business

Tech Brew keeps business leaders up-to-date on the latest innovations, automation advances, policy shifts, and more, so they can make informed decisions about tech.