(Yicai) July 4 -- China is the country that filed the most patents in the field of generative artificial intelligence in the past decade, according to the latest report by the World Intellectual Property Organization.

Inventors based in China were responsible for more than 38,000 patents related to generative AI between 2014 and last year, accounting for 70 percent of the world’s total, according to the WIPO report released yesterday, on the eve of the World AI Conference in Shanghai. The US ranked second with only around 6,300 patents, followed by South Korea, Japan, and India.

Advances in deep learning techniques and increasing computing power have spurred the development of generative AI in recent years, with the number of published patent families in the field of generative AI models exceeding 14,000 last year compared with less than 800 in 2014, the report showed.

Chinese tech giants Tencent Holdings and Baidu and insurer Ping An Insurance Group own the most generative AI patents. Tencent had 2,074 generative AI patent publications in the past decade, followed by Ping An at 1,564 and Baidu at 1,234.

The Chinese Academy of Sciences was the only research organization in the top 10, ranking fourth with 607 generative AI patents. US multinational technology company IBM ranked fifth with 601 patents.

Other Chinese companies and institutions in the top 20 include Alibaba Group Holding, ByteDance, BBK Electronics, NetEase, Huawei Technologies, Tsinghua University, Zhejiang University, China Mobile, and State Grid.

OpenAI, the developer of large language model ChatGPT, did not file any patents for its research activities until the beginning of last year, probably because of the non-profit origin of the US startup, according to the WIPO.

The three-day WAIC and High-Level Meeting on Global AI Governance kicked off in Shanghai today. Themed Governing AI for Good and for All, the WAIC gathers top scientists, entrepreneurs, and government officials to discuss AI topics and enhance global cooperation.

Editor: Futura Costaglione