A recent Microsoft survey ranked Taiwan 23rd in the world in artificial intelligence (AI) use, with 28.4 percent of Taiwanese reporting that they use the technology.
The Microsoft Al Economy Institute in a release on Thursday said that 16.3 percent of the global population used AI tools last year, showing the technology’s accelerating adoption worldwide.
In Taiwan, AI use last year increased to 28.4 percent, from 26.4 percent, overtaking the US (28.3 percent) by a small margin.
Photo: AFP
Although the US is the world’s leading country in AI research and development, the technology’s spread in the workforce has been slower than medium and small economies with a higher level of reliance on AI technology and digitization, the institute said.
The poll identified a divide between developed and developing economies, with AI usage rates of 24.7 percent and 14.1 percent respectively.
The United Arab Emirates had an AI usage rate of 54 percent, the highest in the world, the institute said.
Abu Dhabi in 2017 established the Emirati Ministry of State for Artificial Intelligence, Digital Economy and Remote Work Applications, boosting public trust in the technology to 67 percent, compared with 32 percent in the US, it said.
South Korea last year recorded the biggest increase in AI utilization, moving from 25th to 18th, the institute said.
The change can be attributed to an increase in algorithmic models’ Korean-language capabilities, it said.
Seoul’s passage of an AI basic law and creation of a strategic office to govern the technology and the trend of using ChatGPT to generate anime images resembling Studio Ghibli’s style have also played a role in increasing the technology’s popularity in the nation, it said.
China’s open-source AI DeepSeek successfully garnered a large number of users in its own territories, along with Russia, Belarus and Iran, it said.
The main challenge for the industry is spreading the benefits of AI to more regions to bridge the diffusion gap between nations, it added.
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