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# South Korea has a fifth of its AI talent in hardware; healthcare leads in eight countries, including the US
- URL: https://aiadoption.org/data/ai-authors-inventors-specialization/
- Published: 2026-10-19T14:41:17.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-21T06:05:29.000Z
- Description: South Korea has 19.9% of its top AI talent in hardware, VLSI and IoT. Healthcare is the largest area in eight countries, software in six.
- Author: Manu
- Tags: Data, AI Jobs, #chart, #ai-index-2026, #hub-jobs

19.9%

#1 of 21

Share of South Korea's top AI authors and inventors who specialise in hardware, VLSI and IoT, the highest share of any area in any country

Hardware & IoT share

South Korea19.9%

Singapore14.8%

Japan14%

## What the chart shows

Each country spreads its AI talent across many areas, with no single area above 20%. The largest concentration is South Korea’s 19.9% in hardware, VLSI and IoT; hardware is also the top area in Japan (14.0%) and Singapore (14.8%).

Healthcare and bioinformatics is the largest area in eight countries, including the US (13.3%) and the UK (14.4%). Software engineering leads in six, with Brazil highest at 17.6%. Security and privacy leads in Saudi Arabia (14.9%) and the UAE (12.1%), and machine learning algorithms in Israel (14.1%).

## Key numbers

| Measure                            | Value |
| ---------------------------------- | ----- |
| South Korea, hardware and IoT      | 19.9% |
| Brazil, software and networks      | 17.6% |
| Saudi Arabia, security and privacy | 14.9% |
| United Kingdom, healthcare         | 14.4% |
| Israel, ML algorithms              | 14.1% |
| United States, healthcare          | 13.3% |

## How to read it

- Each row shows how one country’s top AI authors and inventors divide across 14 specialisation areas; rows add up to 100%. Countries are ordered by total number of AI authors and inventors.
- Specialisation areas are assigned by Zeki. The AI Index does not state the year; the data covers the current pool.
- China is not covered by Zeki’s data.

**Source:** [Zeki Data](https://aiadoption.org/sources/#zeki), 2025, via the AI Index Report 2026 (Stanford HAI), figure 1.8.5: *Within-country distribution of top AI authors and inventors across specialization areas*. Chart and text by AI Adoption.  
Numbers checked against the published data on 19 October 2026.  
[Download the data (CSV)](https://charts.aiadoption.org/ai-index/csv/ai-authors-inventors-specialization.csv?ref=aiadoption.org) · [Cite this chart](#source)