Ranking of national AI strategy implementations
Over the last 18 months, Brookings has put out an illuminating series of articles, developing a framework to analyze national AI strategies and their implementations. By now, at least 44 countries have entered the race by creating their own national AI strategic plan. While the inclusion of countries like China, India, and the U.S. are expected, unexpected countries, including Uganda, Armenia, and Latvia, have also drafted national plans in hopes of realizing the promise.
Generally, the plans have been characterized as aspirational and lacking in operational detail such as responsibilities and timelines. In judging on the implementation status of such plans, Brookings had initially looked at five distinct dimensions, namely:
- Technology infrastructure
- AI startups
- Spending
- Patents and conference papers
- People
Following a factor analysis, these could be reduced to just two dimensions: people-related and technology-related.
The chart shows China as the leader in the top corner. However, it is neither the leader in technology (US) nor in people (India) at this point.
The most recent Brookings article specifically took a closer look at the people dimension.
India, Germany and Singapore have a robust current market of technically skilled people, and are positioned to generate even more with their current educational path. As such, there are no people-centric issues that are likely to hinder them in executing their plans.
Both China and South Korea do not currently have a robust market for AI technologists, but are pushing an impressive number of college students into the STEM fields; over time, this will shift them into the Leaders quadrant.
Japan is judged to be more closely aligned with China and South Korea, which is promising. The US, where most of the STEM graduates are foreigners, faces the risk of a talent squeeze if it cannot hold on to these students after graduation (which, in a way, also applies to those well-educated Chinese and Korean experts who will be in high demand in a global AI market place).
To read further, start with this Brookings article.
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