Asia’s AI Agenda: The Ecosystem

To comprehensively examine the development of AI in Asia Pacific, MIT Technology Review Insights has designed Asia’s AI agenda, a research program looking at four distinct angles: Asia’s AI ecosystem, the leading use cases and business applications across the region, the evolving talent landscape, and the emerging discussions around AI and ethics. To produce this series, MIT Technology Review Insights conducted a survey of almost 900 executives across 13 countries, and over two dozen interviews with leading authorities from academia and industry.

Asia’s AI agenda: The ecosystem is the first paper of this series and it zooms into the ambitious plans of Asian governments for leadership in the AI era, and the success they are having in building fertile ecosystems that will attract much-needed AI talent and capital, as well as allowing companies to apply AI quickly and effectively across their organisations.

The key findings of this first paper are:

• With much to gain, most countries have a national plan for accelerating AI adoption.
• Asia has credible potential for becoming a front runner in the AI era.
• China is rapidly applying AI, but basic research lags.
• Building digital economies and digital societies is a key to competitiveness.
• The big issues include securing foundational assets and managing AI’s evolution.

Download the report to get deeper insights into the current position of countries across the Asia Pacific region in building an ecosystem to lead in artificial intelligence.