Venture capital firms and large tech companies have poured billions of dollars into artificial intelligence technology, and that money has backed nearly 800,000 AI-related job openings across the United States in 2022, according to data collected by Stanford University’s Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence.
The data was presented in the institute’s 2023 AI Index Report, which compiled information from across the industry on investment, employment, environmental impact, and ethical ramifications of AI use.
California was the top state for AI-related hiring, with more than 142,000 positions posted in 2022, according to the report, citing data from Lightcast. California is the birthplace of Microsoft-backed OpenAI, as well as Big Tech companies with strong AI arms such as Google and Meta.
High-population states such as Texas, New York and Florida also led the league tables.
Hiring data suggests that some regions not typically known as major tech hubs punched well above their weight.
On average, 1.5% of the job openings in any state are AI-related. But in Washington, D.C., for example, nearly 3% of job postings were in AI. Smaller states, such as Delaware and Arkansas, were also above the national average, with nearly 2.7% and about 2%, respectively.
The report noted that academic collaboration in AI research was dwarfed by private industry research. The U.S. and China continued to lead in collaborative research, a relationship that has been growing since 2010 but slowed in 2021. The report noted that, in 2022, nonacademic research from private companies or think tanks resulted in 10 times as many models as were put out by researchers.
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