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Annual patent applications related to artificial intelligence

CSET

What you should know about this indicator

  • The data covers patents for AI-related inventions filed at patent offices around the world.
  • Patents are counted by family — a group of documents that describe the same invention. Inventors often file the same invention in several countries, so this avoids double-counting.
  • A family counts as a granted patent if any of its documents has been granted, and as an application if all are still pending.
  • Each family is assigned to the country where it was first filed. If an invention is filed at the European Patent Office and then in China, it counts only towards the European Patent Office.
  • The data shows where patents are filed, not where inventors are based. Filing location is a proxy for where inventors expect to develop, make, or sell their inventions.
  • Patent data has a lag because some offices take years to publish new filings. Recent years are excluded here.
Annual patent applications related to artificial intelligence
CSET
Patent applications for AI-related inventions, including pending applications that haven't yet been granted. Each invention is counted once and attributed to the country where it was first filed, not the inventor's nationality.
Source
Center for Security and Emerging Technology (2026) – with minor processing by Our World in Data
Last updated
April 27, 2026
Next expected update
October 2026
Date range
2016–2021
Unit
applications

Sources and processing

This data is based on the following sources

Center for Security and Emerging Technology – Country Activity Tracker: Artificial Intelligence

ETO's Country AI Activity Metrics dataset includes national-level metrics for AI-related research, patents, and private-market investment.

The metrics are derived from a variety of underlying data sources, including ETO's Merged Academic Corpus for research data; The Lens, PATSTAT, and 1790 Analytics for patents; and Crunchbase for company and investment data.

The dataset focuses on countries, not organizations or individuals, and on AI and its subfields. There are many ways to assess countries' AI activities, and the three types of metrics included here, while meaningful, are not exhaustive. The data also has a lag, making counts incomplete for recent years; the lag is especially significant for patent data.

Retrieved on
April 27, 2026
Retrieved from
https://cat.eto.tech/
Citation
This is the citation of the original data obtained from the source, prior to any processing or adaptation by Our World in Data. To cite data downloaded from this page, please use the suggested citation given in Reuse This Work below.
Emerging Technology Observatory Country Activity Tracker: Artificial Intelligence

ETO's Country AI Activity Metrics dataset includes national-level metrics for AI-related research, patents, and private-market investment.

The metrics are derived from a variety of underlying data sources, including ETO's Merged Academic Corpus for research data; The Lens, PATSTAT, and 1790 Analytics for patents; and Crunchbase for company and investment data.

The dataset focuses on countries, not organizations or individuals, and on AI and its subfields. There are many ways to assess countries' AI activities, and the three types of metrics included here, while meaningful, are not exhaustive. The data also has a lag, making counts incomplete for recent years; the lag is especially significant for patent data.

Retrieved on
April 27, 2026
Retrieved from
https://cat.eto.tech/
Citation
This is the citation of the original data obtained from the source, prior to any processing or adaptation by Our World in Data. To cite data downloaded from this page, please use the suggested citation given in Reuse This Work below.
Emerging Technology Observatory Country Activity Tracker: Artificial Intelligence

How we process data at Our World in Data

All data and visualizations on Our World in Data rely on data sourced from one or several original data providers. Preparing this original data involves several processing steps. Depending on the data, this can include standardizing country names and world region definitions, converting units, calculating derived indicators such as per capita measures, as well as adding or adapting metadata such as the name or the description given to an indicator.

At the link below you can find a detailed description of the structure of our data pipeline, including links to all the code used to prepare data across Our World in Data.

Read about our data pipeline
Notes on our processing step for this indicator

We calculate regional and global totals from the country-level data CSET provides, following our region definitions. Countries that are not covered by the source are excluded from these totals. We do not show Africa's regional total. The source covers too few African countries to produce a meaningful aggregate.

Reuse this work

  • All data produced by third-party providers and made available by Our World in Data are subject to the license terms from the original providers. Our work would not be possible without the data providers we rely on, so we ask you to always cite them appropriately (see below). This is crucial to allow data providers to continue doing their work, enhancing, maintaining and updating valuable data.
  • All data, visualizations, and code produced by Our World in Data are completely open access under the Creative Commons BY license. You have the permission to use, distribute, and reproduce these in any medium, provided the source and authors are credited.

Citations

How to cite this page

To cite this page overall, including any descriptions, FAQs or explanations of the data authored by Our World in Data, please use the following citation:

“Data Page: Annual patent applications related to artificial intelligence”, part of the following publication: Charlie Giattino, Edouard Mathieu, Veronika Samborska, and Max Roser (2023) - “Artificial Intelligence”. Data adapted from Center for Security and Emerging Technology. Retrieved from https://archive.ourworldindata.org/20260430-092147/grapher/artificial-intelligence-patents-submitted.html [online resource] (archived on April 30, 2026).

How to cite this data

In-line citationIf you have limited space (e.g. in data visualizations), you can use this abbreviated in-line citation:

Center for Security and Emerging Technology (2026) – with minor processing by Our World in Data

Full citation

Center for Security and Emerging Technology (2026) – with minor processing by Our World in Data. “Annual patent applications related to artificial intelligence – CSET” [dataset]. Center for Security and Emerging Technology, “Country Activity Tracker: Artificial Intelligence” [original data]. Retrieved April 30, 2026 from https://archive.ourworldindata.org/20260430-092147/grapher/artificial-intelligence-patents-submitted.html (archived on April 30, 2026).

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