Outside the San Francisco Bay Area, AI development is overwhelmingly in Beijing and Shanghai.

Judge as of June 2023. The claim is that, apart from the SF Bay Area, AI development is overwhelmingly concentrated in Beijing and Shanghai. True: rankings of AI activity by city (research output, top researchers, frontier model development, AI firms/investment) show Beijing and Shanghai as clearly the dominant centres after the Bay Area, well ahead of other cities (e.g., Seattle, New York, Boston, London, Toronto, Paris). Mostly true: Beijing/Shanghai rank as the leading non-Bay Area hubs on most measures but the margin is moderate rather than overwhelming. Mixed: they rank among the top few on some measures but other cities (e.g., London with DeepMind, Seattle, New York, Boston) match or exceed them on others. Mostly false: Beijing is a major hub but Shanghai is not, or other cities are comparable, so 'overwhelmingly' is a substantial overstatement. False: evidence shows other non-Bay Area cities clearly lead Beijing and Shanghai in AI development.

Set before the research began.

1. E1 Global Innovation Hubs Index 2023 Nature (Nature Research Intelligence, with CIDEG at Tsinghua University) · 27 December 2023

   “Chinese cities, such as Beijing and Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, lead the world in the total number of valid invention patents, accounting for 14 spots in the top 20, and have become the main driving force of global AI technology.”

2. E2 Global Innovation Hubs Index 2023 Nature (Nature Research Intelligence, with CIDEG at Tsinghua University) · 27 December 2023

   “The GIHI2023 top 20 cities/metropolitan areas overall are San Francisco-San Jose, New York MA, Beijing, London MA, Boston MA, Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, Tokyo MA, Baltimore-Washington, Paris MA, Shanghai, Seoul MA, Singapore, Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim, Chicago-Naperville-Elgin, Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, Dallas-Fort Worth, Munich, San Diego MA, Chapel Hill-Durham-Raleigh and Zurich.”

3. E3 Beijing’s central role in global artificial intelligence research PMC (National Library of Medicine, peer-reviewed academic article) · 12 December 2022

   “Beijing has been the most productive city since 2002, the most impactful since 2007, and the one with the largest AI workforce for the past two decades.”

4. E4 EU – outsider of the AI Revolution led by US and China - PubAffairs Bruxelles PubAffairs Bruxelles · 9 September 2021

   “Investment is highly concentrated in geographic hubs, primarily in the US (San Francisco Bay Area, Silicon Valley, Boston and New York), secondly – China (Beijing and Shenzhen) and thirdly – Europe (London).”

A peer-reviewed bibliometric study (E3) names Beijing the most productive and most impactful city for AI research, with the largest AI workforce, which supports Beijing as a major hub. Shanghai does not stand out in the AI-specific evidence. E4 places Boston and New York ahead of China in AI investment, and among Chinese cities it names Beijing and Shenzhen, not Shanghai. E1 says Chinese cities, such as Beijing and the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, lead the world in the total number of valid invention patents and have become the main driving force of global AI technology, but it does not single out Shanghai. The broader innovation ranking (E2) puts New York, London, Boston and others alongside or ahead of Beijing and Shanghai. Together the evidence shows Beijing is a major hub, but saying development is "overwhelmingly" in Beijing and Shanghai substantially overstates it.