South Korean companies have applied for the third largest number of patents related to artificial intelligence (AI) technologies in total in the world over the past 12 years, the government’s data showed on Thursday.

According to an analysis by the Institute for Information & Communications Technology Promotion (IITP) on five patent offices in the U.S., Japan, China, South Korea and EU, the total number of AI-related patents that Korean companies have filed in the recent 12 years is the third largest in the world after the U.S. and Japan. It was followed by Germany, China, France, the Netherlands, Canada, the U.K. and Taiwan. IITP is a Korea’s state-run ICT research and development (R&D) institute.

By company, Samsung Electronics Co. has filed the most AI patents with 3,188, trailed by LG Electronics Inc. with 899, the Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute with 865, and LG Display Co. with 350.

Samsung Display Co. and Samsung Electro-Mechanics Co. have also filed 207 AI patents, respectively, over the cited period, followed by Hyundai Motor Co. with 113, KAIST with 91, and SK Telecom with 75.

According to IITP, Korea has also become the country that has published the seventh largest volume of AI-related research papers during the same period.

As for the number of research literatures on AI technologies published on the global abstract and citation database Scopus from January 2005 to August 2016, the U.S. ranked top, trailed by China, Japan, the U.K., Germany, India, South Korea, France, Spain, Italy.

For the analysis, IITP reviewed all AI-related patents and papers on software, hardware and online services regardless of businesses.

By Park Joon-hyung and Lee Ha-yeon

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