The number of patent application in the artificial intelligence (AI) chips sector has quadrupled globally over the past two years, with South Korean tech giant Samsung Electronics Co. becoming the most active applicant share among others, the Korean Intellectual Property Office (Kipo) said on Thursday.

According to Kipo, the number of patent filing in the AI chips sector soared globally from 77 in 2015 to 391 last year. By company and organization, Samsung Electronics Co. registered the largest 199 patents or 24 percent of the total, followed by Qualcomm Inc. with 59 patents (7.1 percent), Korea’s Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute with 36 patents (4.3 percent), and Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology with 23 patents (2.8 percent).

AI chips are considered one of the core technologies that can spur the fourth industrial revolution.

Of the 828 patents filed for in the AI chips sector over the past 15 years since 2003, 79 percent or 650 patents were of AI non-memory chips while the remaining 21 percent or 178 patents of AI memory chips.

By country, Korea had the lion’s share of the filing, 590 patents that accounted for 71.3 percent of the total, while the United States applied for 182 patents (22 percent), Japan 17 patents (2.1 percent), and France nine patents (1.1 percent).

By sector, patent filing for machine learning-use non-memory chips such as Google Inc.’s AlphaGo made up the largest 42 percent of total AI non-memory chips application. There were also 58 patents related neuromorphic-use non-memory chip technology that is gaining attention as a next-generation AI processor, increasing significantly over the last three years.

An unnamed official from Kipo, AI chips are expected to create great synergy when combining a high-performance processor with a high-speed and wideband memory. The official advised Korean companies to gain more intellectual property rights through balanced investment and research and development on various AI functions and world-class semiconductor technology to become an AI chips powerhouse leading the fourth industrial revolution.

By Won Ho-sup and Lee Eun-joo

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