*** ----> China leading surge in generative AI patents: UN | THE DAILY TRIBUNE | KINGDOM OF BAHRAIN

China leading surge in generative AI patents: UN

AFP | Geneva, Switzerland

The Daily Tribune – www.newsofbahrain.com

The number of international patent filings for innovations using cutting-edge generative artificial intelligence have surged eightfold in six years, the UN said Wednesday, the majority from China-based innovators.

A total of 54,000 patents were filed for generative AI innovations in the decade leading to 2023, the United Nations' World Intellectual Property Organization said in a fresh report.

A full 25 percent of those were filed in the last year alone, WIPO said.

So-called GenAI, in which trained computer programmes create everything from text and videos to music and computer code in seconds on simple prompts, "has emerged as a game - changing technology", said WIPO chief Daren Tang.

GenAI patents still only represent six percent of all AI patents globally, but the number of filings is rising fast.

WIPO highlighted that GenAI patents had increased eightfold since 2017, when the deep neural network architecture behind large language models that have become synonymous with AI was first introduced.