AI arms race: Global index shows which countries dominate AI development

While there has been a surge in AI development over the past few months, a global AI arms race has been underway for several years. Starting in 2020, Tortoise Media releases an annual Global AI Index ranking countries vying for AI dominance.

The fourth edition of the Global AI Index, published by Tortoise Media on Wednesday, reflects last year's surge in generative development driven by the launch and success of ChatGPT.

The media company uses three main areas of analysis to rank countries in terms of AI development: investment, innovation and adoption.

The United States tops the list, by a significant margin, with a score of 100. The United States leads in all three components, especially in the area of investment, due to its strong performance in the commercial investment subcomponent, which reflects the level of startup activity.

This is fitting, as some of the biggest leaders in generative AI are currently American companies such as Google, Microsoft and, most importantly, OpenAI.

China is in second place with a score of 62 out of 100. Since 2020, both the US and China have maintained their 2020 first and second place positions. However, there has been a shift in the rankings for other countries.

In 2020 and 2021. The UK moved from third to fourth place and was displaced by Singapore, which has seen significant growth over the past few years. Singapore ranked tenth in 2020, moved up to sixth in 2021 and moved up a further three places in 2023, scoring 50 points out of 100.

The overall ranking reflects countries' performance on the AI scale, but it's also worth noting the countries leading in AI intensity. Singapore, Israel and Switzerland lead the way in terms of intensity, meaning these countries "perform best when considering AI potential relative to their population size and economy size," the study says.

As the AI race continues to gain momentum and more countries build up resources to participate, we can expect to see further changes in country rankings next year.