China, Germany, Britain and France rank among the top five in the world of artificial intelligence and robotics

Recently, Springer Nature, a world-renowned academic publishing agency, released a message to the media that the newly published Nature supplement “Nature Index AI (Artificial Intelligence) and Robotics” showed that the United States is still in an obvious leading position in AI and robotics, followed by China, Germany, the United Kingdom and France, ranking second to fifth in the world.
According to the newly published “Nature Index AI and Robotics” supplement, the number of AI and robotics papers in 82 high-quality natural science journals tracked by the Nature Index increased rapidly year by year, with an exponential growth curve.
In just two years, the number of articles related to AI and robotics in these journals has increased from less than 4000 in 2019 to nearly 7000 in 2021. For example, according to Share, one of the main indicators of natural index, the growth data is even more significant.
According to the natural index data revealing the growth of scientific research output in AI and robotics fields by global research institutions from 2015 to 2021, the United States is still in an obvious leading position in this field, with China, Germany, the United Kingdom and France ranking second to fifth.
According to the ranking of article share, 31 of the top 50 institutions with AI and robotic-related research output in 2015-2021 are American research institutions. The top 10 institutions are Harvard University, Stanford University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, German Max Planck Society, Cambridge University, Oxford University, Columbia University, University of California, San Diego, and the National Institutes of Health.
Among them, the Chinese Academy of Sciences was the institution with the fastest growth in the share of articles in this field from 2015 to 2021, and three other Chinese institutions were among the top 50 in AI and robotics from 2015 to 2021, namely Tsinghua University (27th), Peking University (36th) and the University of Chinese Academy of Sciences (38th).
The natural index data also shows that AI and robotics have shown a trend of entering other fields across disciplinary boundaries, thus forming interdisciplinary AI and robotics research, because researchers are seeking various ways to take advantage of the advantages of these two disciplines.
The supplement also pays close attention to how AI and robotics promote the progress of disciplines from environmental science to humanities, and how to exert practical influence in clinical medicine and other fields. The natural index shows that the United States is in the leading position in the ranking of AI and robotics research output of healthcare institutions, and the top 10 institutions are from the United States.
However, the natural index data shows that the high-quality research output in AI and robotics is not balanced between academia and industry. Compared with academic peers, private research institutions publish far fewer AI papers in leading natural science journals tracked by the natural index. According to the share of articles, Alphabet, the parent company of Google, is the only commercial organization that ranks among the top 100 institutions.