That data shows that top U.S. companies are driving current-generation AI development, likely in deployment, application infrastructure, and commercialization, but Chinese companies and institutions aren’t letting up.
A separate data set from IFI shows Google, Samsung, Huawei, Microsoft, State Grid, Bosch, Tencent, and IBM as the top AI patent applicants worldwide.
Most of the most aggressive AI patent applications are diversified technology companies, but two exceptions stand out:
- State Grid Corporation of China, the world’s largest state-owned utility, applies generative AI to grid optimization, predictive maintenance, and infrastructure planning.
- Ping An Insurance, a Chinese financial services firm, uses AI for underwriting, claims processing, and product personalization.
“Ping An epitomizes a broader trend within the global insurance industry to improve the ‘combined ratio,’ a measure of profitability that takes both insurance loss ratios and efficiency into account,” said Senior Investment Analyst and Lead Advisor at The Motley Fool Asit Sharma. “Machine learning and generative AI are opening up new opportunities for insurers to better assess risk in underwriting and automating areas like claims processing and customer service.
“More broadly, Ping An's patent portfolio also reflects its plan to expand beyond insurance into technology, digital health, and other areas where generative AI might give it a competitive springboard,” he added.
State Grid is the only utility company on the list.
Sharma sees two other factors behind State Grid’s generative AI push: Chinese industrial policy and geopolitical ambitions.
“State Grid's objectives are informed by China's industrial policy, which focuses on the development of exportable goods technology; for example, AI-capable sensors for Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT),” Sharma said.
“This focus is intertwined with geopolitics; for example, State Grid is tasked with supporting infrastructure for China's multinational Belt and Road initiative. So we can see that the company is likely active in genAI patents to ensure China's energy security while simultaneously innovating for industrial export and the export of energy technology wherever China seeks influence.”
Alphabet, Microsoft, and Adobe are integrating generative AI across their products. Alphabet and Microsoft have their own flagship generative AI tools in Google Gemini and Microsoft CoPilot, and each is augmenting its other well-known products and applications with generative AI.
Adobe is focused on using generative AI for image creation, content generation, and PDF analysis.
Patent count isn’t determinative for a company’s strength in generative AI. The quality of patents matters as well. Analysts suggest that despite the numerical lead Chinese companies hold in generative AI patents, they have struggled to build tools based on them, in part due to constraints on access to high-end, specialized AI semiconductors.
But that gap in computing might not last forever, Sharma said. “A GPU accelerator deficit is likely hampering the rate of progress that Chinese tech firms can make in LLM development. However, restriction reliably births innovation over the long run, so we can expect to see a growing portion of Chinese patents aimed at workarounds for semiconductor compute power, including alternatives to GPU-based training and inference.”
Applications and use cases most generative AI patents are built for, by company
The most common application cited in generative AI patents is software or an otherwise generally defined use case. That’s the case overall and among the 10 companies that hold the most generative AI patents. Life sciences are the second-most-common application cited in generative AI patents, followed by document management and publishing, business solutions, and industry and manufacturing, according to WIPO.
Examining the use case for generative AI patents held by companies provides insights into which parts of their businesses or products may be improved by AI and, more broadly, which sectors may see the most AI-driven innovation.
