Brainstorm AI Singapore 2024: A Global Scorecard
Presenter: Serena CESAREO, Senior Researcher, Tortoise Media
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TechTranscript
00:00Hello everyone. So the Global AI Index first launched in 2019 and has been
00:05updated four times since then and it's essentially a big data-led exercise that
00:11ultimately ranks over 60 countries based on artificial intelligence capacity. And
00:15before I go into the findings, I just want to say that since I've been working
00:20on it with brilliant data scientist Joe White on the project, it's been just
00:24wonderful to see the amount of interest that this project gets from both
00:28academia and policymakers around the world who we know use our index to
00:33inform their national AI strategies and decision, which is amazing for us. And so
00:38in terms of its structure, we collect indicators, data sorry, over 111
00:44different indicators that we organize across three pillars and seven set
00:48pillars that cover everything from research to development, talent,
00:52infrastructure, operating environment, government strategy and commercial
00:57ecosystem. In terms of the ranking for the latest iteration of the index, these
01:03are the top ten nations and we see that the US ranks first on all pillars of the
01:09index and really leads by a strong margin compared to everyone else. China
01:14comes second and it's the only country to get close to challenging the US in
01:18some areas. And Singapore comes third and Singapore ranks really well on all per
01:24capita indicators, so all indicators that kind of measure AI capacity in relation
01:30to the country's population and economy size. And this is a good example for how
01:37a country that is perhaps smaller in terms of population and economy can
01:42really outperform on AI and is a really strong and dynamic AI hub like
01:48Singapore is. And talking about smaller economies, we are able to differentiate
01:55between intensity and scale as part of our index analysis and we're able to do
02:01so by isolating per capita indicators. So like I said earlier, we don't just look
02:05at, for example, the sheer number of data scientists in a country, but we also look
02:10at the number of data scientists in relation to the country's population. And
02:14by doing this, we see that Singapore tops the list when it comes to intensity, but
02:20there are other countries like Israel, Switzerland, Sweden, Korea, Finland, and a
02:25few others that really outperform on AI despite being smaller countries. When we
02:30look at scale, obviously the US and China lead the ranking. And I know I have to
02:36wrap up soon, but given that the 2024 edition of the index will launch in less
02:41than two months, I thought I'd give some preliminary findings from the new
02:47iteration. And I've selected a couple of indicators that I thought were most
02:51interesting, also make it regionally relevant to Asia given the opportunity
02:56today. And so this is the first one, and this is from our commercial ecosystem
03:03subpillar. And this is looking at private investment in AI. And we can see that
03:08Asia, excluding China, makes up 2.6% of global private investment in AI, which is
03:14very much dominated by the US, as we can see here, which I think makes up around
03:2066%. Then China is around 9%. And the rest of Asia is 2.6%. And it has been
03:28declining slightly over the past couple of years, whereas China and the US have
03:33been growing. And so zooming in on Asia, this is a private investment in AI in
03:42the region, again, excluding China, is dominated by Singapore, Korea and India
03:47and Japan to a lesser extent. Although yes, it has been declining over the past
03:53couple of years, as you can see more clearly here. And then lastly, in terms of
03:58talent, this is a new indicator that we have in the index, which is looking at
04:02the retention rates. So looking at talent retention and not just talent growth. And
04:08we're able to access data from a company called Zeki. And this is showing that
04:12Singapore's capacity for retaining talent in AI has remained relatively stable over
04:18the past few years, compared to, I guess, other countries in the region like India,
04:23Korea, Japan and Taiwan. Although its overall capacity, despite being quite high,
04:29around 70% is a little bit lower than that of other countries in the region, which gets
04:35closer to 80%. And so this is it for me. Stay tuned for the September 2024 launch with
04:45more and improved indicators with an expanded list of countries as well. And yeah,
04:50look out for the new index on the Tortoise Media website. And I'll hand over back to
04:54Ellie. Thank you so much.