Evolutions and trends of artificial intelligence (AI): research, output, influence and competition

Purpose This paper throws light on some of the nature of artificial intelligence (AI) development, which will serve as a starter for helping to advance its development. Design/methodology/approach This work reveals the evolutions and trends of AI from four dimensions: research, output, influence and competition through leveraging academic knowledge graph with 130,750 AI scholars and 43,746 scholarly articles. Findings The authors unearth that the "research convergence" phenomenon becomes more evident in current AI research for scholars' highly similar research interests in different regions. The authors notice that Pareto's principle applies to AI scholars' outputs, and the outputs have been increasing at an explosive rate in the past two decades. The authors discover that top works dominate the AI academia, for they attracted considerable attention. Finally, the authors delve into AI competition, which accelerates technology development, talent flow, and collaboration. Originality/value The work aims to throw light on the nature of AI development, which will serve as a starter for helping to advance its development. The work will help us to have a more comprehensive and profound understanding of the evolutions and trends, which bridge the gap between literature research and AI development as well as enlighten the way the authors promote AI development and its strategy formulation.