Tsinghua University has surpassed the combined AI patent count of MIT, Stanford, Princeton, and Harvard between 2005 and the end of 2024. The Chinese institution received over 900 patents in 2024 alone, with a total of 4,986 patents in the period. China now accounts for more than half of all active patent families globally in AI and machine learning fields, according to data analytics service LexisNexis.
The university also has more AI research papers among the 100 most cited than any other school at last count. The U.S. still holds the most influential AI patents and the top performing models. Harvard and MIT consistently rank ahead of Tsinghua in patent influence. American institutions produced 40 notable AI models in 2024 compared to 15 from Chinese organizations, according to Stanford’s AI Index Report. China’s share of the world’s elite AI researchers–the top 2%–rose from 10% in 2019 to 26% in 2022. The U.S. share fell from 35% to 28% during the same period, according to the Information Technology & Innovation Foundation.