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countries and patent offices whose AI patent portfolios are closer to the US's than to China's (the exception is China itself)
■ closer to the US ■ closer to China
What the chart shows
The AI Index compared which technology areas each country’s AI patents cover with those of the US and China, on a scale from 0 (no overlap) to 1 (identical). Every country and patent office in the analysis, except China itself, is closer to the US portfolio. On the chart, those points sit below the dashed line.
Most cluster in the upper right, meaning they overlap strongly with both. Denmark (0.52 to the US, 0.44 to China) and Austria are the least similar to either.
Key numbers
| Measure | Value |
|---|---|
| South Korea | 0.85 US / 0.73 China |
| Japan | 0.75 US / 0.64 China |
| United Kingdom | 0.81 US / 0.68 China |
| Denmark | 0.52 US / 0.44 China |
| China vs US | 0.77 |
How to read it
- Proximity uses the min-complement measure (Bar et al., 2012) over patent classification codes.
- WIPO and the European Patent Office appear as patent offices rather than countries.
Source: AI Index, 2026, via the AI Index Report 2026 (Stanford HAI), figure 1.7.7: AI patent portfolios’ technological proximity to the United States and China, 2010–24. Chart and text by AI Adoption.
Numbers checked against the published data on 19 October 2026.
Download the data (CSV) · Cite this chart
Numbers checked against the published data on 19 October 2026.
Download the data (CSV) · Cite this chart
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