Microsoft ranks 10th in the world for AI patents. Most companies beating it are in China

Since the release of OpenAI’s ChatGPT, tech companies around the world have focused efforts on developing generative artificial intelligence models to power a range of tasks from search to virtual assistance.

The AI boom has also led to an increase in the number of related patents filed. Gen-AI patent families — or a group of patents related to the same invention — grew from 733 in 2014 to over 14,000 in 2023, according to the United Nations’ World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO).

While the U.S. aims to curb China’s AI developments through trade restrictions, Chinese corporations outnumber U.S. companies when it comes to ownership of gen-AI patents, according to the data.

Here are the top 10 companies in the world by ownership of gen-AI patents, according to WIPO.

10. Microsoft — 377

U.S. tech giant Microsoft has 377 gen-AI patents, including for software and applications, business solutions, and personal devices. Microsoft has boosted its AI development through its investment in ChatGPT-maker OpenAI, which has also filed gen-AI patents.

9. BBK Electronics — 377

Chinese consumer electronics company BBK Electronics, which was deregistered in 2023, has 377 gen-AI patents. BBK Electronics was the parent company of smartphone makers including Oppo and Vivo.

8. ByteDance — 418

TikTok-parent ByteDance has 418 gen-AI patents, mostly for AI software and applications, document management, and publishing. It released its AI-powered chatbot Doubao last August, which surpassed Baidu’s Ernie Bot in downloads last year and has more active monthly users on iOS, Bloomberg reported.

7. Alphabet — 443

Google-parent Alphabet has 443 gen-AI patents. Google’s AI chatbot Gemini is powered by its fastest, most cost-efficient model 1.5 Flash. It is the only corporation on the list that is among the top 20 largest entities with gen-AI scientific publications, with 556, according to the WIPO.

6. Samsung — 468

South Korean electronics giant Samsung has 468 gen-AI patents, and unveiled its gen-AI model family Samsung Gauss in November. It includes Samsung Gauss Language, which generates text, Samsung Gauss Code, which generates code, and Samsung Gauss image, an image generator.

5. Alibaba — 571

Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group has 571 gen-AI patents. The group’s cloud computing subsidiary, Alibaba Cloud, released its latest large language model (LLM) series, Qwen 2, in June, and said it “topped rankings for open-sourced LLMs.”

4. IBM — 601

IT giant IBM has the most gen-AI patents of any U.S. company with 601. The company has a gen-AI platform called watsonx which companies can use to build and deploy gen-AI models focused on data security.

IBM is actually surpassed by the research organization of the Chinese Academy of Sciences for owning the most gen-AI patents, but it is not a corporation.

3. Baidu — 1,234

Chinese tech giant Baidu has 1,234 gen-AI patents. The company, which holds the largest share of the country’s search engine market, announced the latest version of its AI model, Ernie 4.0, in October.

2. Ping An — 1,564

Chinese insurance company Ping An Insurance Group has 1,564 gen-AI patents, and uses gen-AI models for underwriting and risk assessment tasks.

1. Tencent — 2,074

Chinese tech company Tencent has the most gen-AI patents with 2,074, and plans to add gen-AI capabilities to its products, including messaging and social media app WeChat.

Tencent unveiled its proprietary foundation model, Hunyuan, in September, which powers an AI chatbot that can generate images and text.