One way to track a nation's talent pool in the AI space is by tracking how many people contribute to the development of significant machine learning systems in that nation. The U.S. has had the most ML system authors for nearly the whole period for which this statistic has been tracked, with the UK & EU combining for second place. In 2021, China outpaced the UK & EU, but fell back to third in 2022.

Countries will need to continue to grow their talent base if they want to remain competitive in the AI research and implementation race. Can the UK and EU hold on to second place in 2024, or will China pull ahead once more?

This question will resolve using the data for the year 2024 produced by the Stanford AI Index Report. According to the 2023 report (page 32), for example, in 2022, the EU and UK combined had 155 authors of significant machine learning systems while China had just 49.

For clarity, if the 2025 Stanford AI Index Report does not include data for 2024, then the 2026 report will be used instead.