China has firmly established itself as the world’s largest source of generative artificial intelligence patent activity, according to new data from the World Intellectual Property Organization.
WIPO published its Technology SPARK Report, “Patent Trends Update in GenAI,” on 14 July 2026, extending analysis from its 2024 Patent Landscape Report through the end of 2025.
China-based inventors published over 43,000 generative AI patent families in 2024 and 2025 combined, exceeding the country’s entire cumulative output from 2014 to 2023.
China’s compound annual growth rate for generative AI patent families reached 64% between 2023 and 2025, placing it well ahead of most competing nations in absolute volume.
The top four inventor locations globally — China, the United States, Japan and the Republic of Korea — together account for the majority of all generative AI patent family publications worldwide.
Six of the world’s top ten generative AI patent applicants are based in China, with Tencent Holdings leading on 2,702 patent families, followed by Ping An Insurance Group on 2,240 and Baidu on 1,902.
The Chinese Academy of Sciences holds 1,396 patent families, making it the leading research institution in the field, while State Grid Corporation of China has accumulated 1,144 patent families in total.
Additional Chinese firms in the global top 25 include China Southern Power Grid, Inspur Group and Ant Group, spanning sectors including energy, cloud infrastructure and financial technology.
US generative AI patent families rose from approximately 1,185 in 2023 to over 4,380 in 2025, reflecting a 92% compound annual growth rate, which is actually higher than China’s rate over the same period.
Alphabet (Google) (NASDAQ: GOOGL) leads US-based generative AI patent owners with 1,083 patent families, followed by Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) with 865 and IBM (NYSE: IBM) with 821.
Nvidia (NASDAQ: NVDA), with 497 patent families and 333 filed in 2024 and 2025, is a new entrant in the global top 25, reflecting its expansion beyond GPU hardware into AI software and model architectures.
SoftBank, a Japanese company, is the single largest generative AI patent holder overall, with nearly 3,000 patent families published almost entirely in 2025.
WIPO Director General Daren Tang stated that “Gen-AI patents are no longer just being filed by tech companies but also by large enterprises in areas like finance, telecommunications, infrastructure and other digital services.”
Published generative AI patent families rose from approximately 14,000 in 2023 to over 37,800 in 2025, with more than 56,000 new families published across 2024 and 2025 combined.
Generative AI now accounts for 8.7% of all AI-related patent family publications globally, up from 6.1% in 2023 and just 4.2% in 2017, underscoring the technology’s rapid commercial and intellectual importance.
Several countries including the United States, Japan, Germany, Canada and Switzerland posted compound annual growth rates above 80%, narrowing the relative gap with China while it continues to lead in absolute volume.