Template-Type: ReDIF-Paper 1.0
Author-Name: Kumar Rishabh
Author-X-Name-First: Kumar
Author-X-Name-Last: Rishabh
Author-Name: Vatsala Shreeti
Author-X-Name-First: Vatsala
Author-X-Name-Last: Shreeti
Title: The geography of AI firms
Abstract: In this paper, we trace the geography and economic characteristics of firms that produce artificial intelligence (AI) products and services. Many economies around the world are evaluating their strategic priorities in AI, yet relatively little is documented about the global distribution of AI production. We construct a new database that identifies 1,246 AI-producing firms across 32 economies. We map these firms in each economy into the five layers of the AI supply chain: compute, cloud and related infrastructure, data tools, AI models and AI applications. The biggest markets for AI production are China and the US. Most economies specialise only in a few supply chain layers and many focus largely on compute. AI firms in all economies exhibit strong home bias in investment activity, with a focus on downstream applications. Finally, we find that venture capital inflows are strongly correlated with the presence and density of AI firms in a given economy.
Creation-Date: 2026-04
File-URL: https://www.bis.org/publ/work1343.pdf
File-Format: Application/pdf
File-Function: Full PDF document
File-URL: https://www.bis.org/publ/work1343.htm
File-Format: text/html
Number: 1343
Keywords: artificial intelligence, AI supply chain, firm geography, AI measurement
Classification-JEL: O33, C81, L86, F23, L16
Handle: RePEc:bis:biswps:1343