The United States and China are the two top global leaders in artificial intelligence (AI) development, and China has the most generative AI patents from 2014 to 2023, an AI expert said after the International Institute for Management Development (IMD) released its AI Maturity Index on Tuesday.

According to the second edition of the AI Maturity Index, which ranks companies on how effectively they have adopted AI to transform business strategies and operations, NVIDIA ranked top, with Microsoft and Alphabet following in second and third place. Among the 300 top companies, the number of Chinese companies only followed that of the United States.

In a virtual interview, Michael Wade, professor of Strategy and Digital at IMD and Director of the TONOMUS Global Center for Digital and AI Transformation, said that China's dominance in AI patent filings and its focus on practical applications in manufacturing, healthcare, and autonomous vehicles provide a strong foundation for growth and value creation.

Although export controls have cut off China's access to advanced computing chips critical to AI development, "China leads the world in generative AI patents with over 38,210 filed from 2014 to 2023, substantially higher than the United States' 6,276 patents," he emphasized.

"China is less concerned about building the most powerful AI capabilities, and more focused on bringing AI to market with an efficiency-driven and low-cost approach," Wade said.

In the technology and telecommunications sectors, China Mobile, Deutsche Telekom, and NTT are investing billions of U.S. dollars in AI-ready data centers and hyperscale computing capacity, he said, noting that "Technology and insurance sectors show the strongest AI maturity among Chinese firms, while traditional state-owned enterprises (SOEs) in energy and construction rank lowest."

The AI Maturity Index evaluates how the top 300 companies in the Forbes Global 2000 advance their AI strategies. It focuses on how organizations lead with AI, balancing technology with leadership, culture, and ethics.

According to its findings, tech companies lead the index, but the financial sector occupies 32 percent of the top 100 spots. Marking diverging applications of AI across 10 industries, the index showed that more AI-mature companies demonstrate superior revenue performance, with year-on-year revenue growth averaging 6.79 percent, compared to -0.51 percent for less AI-mature companies.

IMD, based in Switzerland, is an independent university institute with campuses in Lausanne and Singapore, and recently established an in-country team in Shenzhen, China.