You wouldn't know it, judging by the poor performance of the Bixby conversational AI. But it turns out that Samsung Electronics has the highest number of AI-related patent applications under its belt. Even more so than big tech companies like IBM, Google, and Microsoft.
The Korean Intellectual Property Office (KIPO) revealed yesterday that AI-related patent applications increased 28-fold over the last decade. From 2011 to 2020, KIPO says that the number of AI patents went from 530 to a whopping 14,848. And Samsung Electronics has the majority of them.
Of course, this doesn't say much about the quality of the patents or their real-world application potential, but still, it is impressive that Samsung has beaten companies like IBM, Google, Microsoft, and Baidu. And it is particularly surprising, given that Samsung's commercial AI applications, such as Bixby, are lagging behind giants like Microsoft, the latter of which has supported OpenAI's ChatGPT project.
According to KIPO (via Business Korea), Samsung owns 1,213 AI-related patent applications (2.9%) and is followed by IBM (928 patents – 2.2%), Google (824 patents – 2%), Microsoft (731 patent applications and 1.7%), and Baidu, which has 572 AI patents accommodating for 1.4%.
As for which nation has recorded the most AI-related patent applications, the USA came in first with 35.6% and was followed closely by China with 31%. Japan was third with 11.6%, and South Korea ranked fourth with a share of 11.3%.
Samsung revealed in a recent interview that it is highly impressed with ChatGPT and is looking at this language model as an example of where it could steer its own efforts next. The company is also open to collaborating with big AI companies to develop new AI solutions for mobile devices and consumer electronics.
Samsung may want to add ChatGPT-like capabilities to its Bixby platform soon, the latter of which hasn't seen any real advancements in recent times and failed to become a “must have” component of the user experience for most Galaxy device customers.
