Understanding Team Collaboration in Artificial Intelligence from the perspective of Geographic Distance

TL;DR

This study examines how geographic distance influences AI team collaborations over time, revealing increased collaboration breadth and density domestically and internationally, with the US and China playing key roles.

Contribution

It introduces a geographic distance-based analysis of AI collaboration patterns using a large publication dataset from 1950 to 2019.

Findings

Collaboration in AI has increased in both domestic and international contexts.

The US leads in AI publications and collaborations.

China has become a significant player in international AI collaborations after 2010.

Abstract

This paper analyzes team collaboration in the field of Artificial Intelligence (AI) from the perspective of geographic distance. We obtained 1,584,175 AI related publications during 1950-2019 from the Microsoft Academic Graph. Three latitude-and-longitude-based indicators were employed to quantify the geographic distance of collaborations in AI over time at domestic and international levels. The results show team collaborations in AI has been more popular in the field over time with around 42,000 (38.4%) multiple-affiliation AI publications in 2019. The changes in geographic distances of team collaborations indicate the increase of breadth and density for both domestic and international collaborations in AI over time. In addition, the United States produced the largest number of single-country and internationally collaborated AI publications, and China has played an important role in international collaborations in AI after 2010.