In the midst of the battle between the United States and China to lead technological development, with artificial intelligence (AI) as the flag, and which already translates into a direct commercial confrontation between both powers to the point that the Financial Director of the Chinese giant Huawei was Arrested in Canada at the request of the American Government on charges of violating sanctions imposed on third countries such as Iran, a new superpower wants to join the platoon of followers who want to get a slice of the innovation that is going to revolutionize society, companies, leisure, … in the next years.
It is about Israel, “the country in the world with the highest number of startups per inhabitant dedicated to AI, with a very powerful hub in Tel-Aviv and an orientation that goes beyond military issues – although the army is undoubtedly one of the fundamental engines for its implementation-, such as autonomous vehicles ”, as Ándrés Pedreño, Professor of Applied Economics, former rector of the University of Alicante, and promoter of Alican-TEC, an association for the promotion and promotion of Technology and the Knowledge Society in Alicante.
Israel’s artificial intelligence ecosystem, made up of companies that develop solutions with technologies such as machine learning, deep learning, computer vision, natural language processing, robotics, voice recognition, … has accumulated more than 7,500 million dollars, and some experts consider it as one of the undisputed leading countries in AI globally in the next five years.
In the last five years or five years, an average of 140 new companies are established annually in Israel around artificial intelligence, and in 2017 AI startups raised almost 2 billion dollars, 70% more than in 2016. For this year which ends, analysts expect the figure to be close to 3,500 million, or almost touching 4,000 million.
Only two IPOs of artificial intelligence companies in Israel, the one of Mobileye acquired by Intel, and the acquisition of Datorama by Salesforce, exceeded 500 million dollars at the time, while the remaining offers were and continue to be below 100 million. Basic computer vision technologies, computer hardware, and autonomous driving systems are the areas of greatest appeal for companies that want to invest in AI in Israel.
And all of this is because Israel is a hotbed of AI talent, with nearly 4,000 developers, engineers and data scientists working on AI research, development and integration (including hardware and software). 64% of Israeli AI talents are employees of startups, while 31% are employees of 58 multinational companies that have dedicated AI centers or laboratories in Israel. The rest are employed by Israeli corporations and universities. According to the starthub.ai report, from which most of the data in this article is drawn, an average employee working in this field of AI in Israel earns between $ 109,000 and $ 140,000 annually.
In Europe, as Andrés Pedreño says in his Big Data and Artificial Intelligence Book, only the United Kingdom and London in particular are ahead of Israel, being “a benchmark as a consolidated hub of AI companies, with a robust fintech sector and prestigious universities such as Cambridge , London School of Economics and Oxford within a radius of 100 kilometers, as well as government investment plans that envisage an effort of more than one billion dollars for the AI industry ”.
And in Spain? As the Professor of Applied Economics, Andrés Pedreño also highlights, “we can already speak of a worrying situation, without a defined strategic plan regarding artificial intelligence, and without a relevant technological ecosystem that allows the systematic development of innovative companies. We have proposed a draft White Paper on Big Data and AI that, apart from the urgency of its publication, should be reflected in an ambitious government strategy and commitment capable of consolidating the leadership and transformation of our economic system in the new international context that is emerging. coming ” . But for now we will have to continue proclaiming, and see how Israel, the United Kingdom, not to mention China and the United States, are already light years ahead.
