China and the UK are leading the adoption of Gen AI, which although sounds surprising to begin with, becomes clearer as you dig into their state strategies
The UK and China are leading the world in generative AI (Gen AI) adoption which shows that efforts for the island nation to become an ‘AI superpower’ are well underway.
Commissioned by software company SAS and conducted by market research agency Coleman Parkes Research, the global study of 16000 decision makers, revealed that 83% of organisations in China and 70% in the UK are using Gen AI technology, outpacing other major economies like the United States (65%) and Australia (63%).
Gen AI, popularised through the likes of OpenAI’s ChatGPT, has been seeing growing use in both the enterprise side and from individuals within enterprises using it to augment elements of their job through its content, code, image and summary creation abilities.
Gen AI adoption
This surge in AI adoption comes at a critical juncture in the global technological landscape.
Its potential economic impact is staggering, with McKinsey estimating it could add between US$2.6 trillion to US$4.4 trillion annually across various use cases.
To highlight the impact, that’s comparable to the entire GDP of the UK in 2021.
By automating complex tasks, providing data-driven insights, and augmenting human capabilities, GenAI can streamline the processes in which business frequently engage in.
The study showed that 82% of organisations using Gen AI have already experienced cost savings and improved customer retention rates.
Why China and UK?
When looking at why China and the UK are leaders in Gen AI, it is important to look at their standing with the technology from a state level.
The East Asian nation currently dominates the global race in Gen AI intelligence patents, filing more than 38,000 patents from 2014 to 2023. It’s therefore no surprise that the report showed 83% of their organisations using the technology.
This comes from the country’s government seeing it as important of the world of tomorrow. As a result, China implemented some of the world’s first rules governing Gen AI, requiring chatbots to adhere to “core socialist values” and protect national security.
This confidence in what is in the field of play can allow organisations to go full steam ahead without worrying what they spent millions upon billions in creating becoming regulated down the line.
This proactive approach to regulation may explain why 70% of Asia-Pacific business leaders feel “fully prepared” or “moderately prepared” to comply with incoming generative AI regulations, compared to 59% in North America and 52% in Northern Europe.
Equally, the UK also took an active approach in gaining a consensus on the tech.
The former Prime Minister of the nation Rishi Sunak, repeatedly postured for the UK to become an AI superpower, going on to creating the AI Safety Summit in 2023, the first global safety summit on AI.
It is moves like this that saw giant investment from private enterprise into the country.
In 2024, a UK startup secured Europe’s biggest-ever AI investment; Salesforce picked London as the place to open its first-ever ‘AI Center’, and AI hyperscaler cloud company CoreWeave £1bn (US$1.25bn) Investment in the UK.
Gen AI hurdles
However, the path to widespread AI adoption is not without obstacles. The study reveals that only 9% of leaders are extremely familiar with their organisation’s adoption of generative AI, highlighting a significant knowledge gap.
Although enterprise editions of the famous Gen AI softwares exists, many individual workers have taken it upon themselves to use free or public systems to augment their workflow without any diktat from higher ups.
Additionally, organisations are facing challenges related to insufficient data for fine-tuning LLMs and a lack of appropriate tools for successful AI implementation.
Yet despite this, most organisations (75%) say they have set aside budgets to invest in Gen AI in the next financial year.
As the UK and China lead the charge in Gen AI adoption, their experiences offer valuable insights for other countries and organisations looking to more widely adopt this transformative technology across their enterprise.
