Austrian Research and Technology Report 2020

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Austrian Research and Technology Report 2020
being undertaken by Austrian companies is only pos-
sible to a limited extent at present. Based on recent 
analyses, however, it can be assumed that several 
hundred firms are grappling with the issue of AI and 
developing or deploying solutions in different ways 
and to varying degrees. Most of these companies are 
software developers or management/market consul-
tants. The relevant areas of application reflect 
Austria’s areas of strength in manufacturing, primari-
ly automotive and mechanical engineering. The con-
centration of companies active in the AI field (i.e. 
these as a percentage of all companies in a sector) is 
highest in the pharmaceutical products manufactur-
ing segment (20%), oil processing (20%), insurance 
(8%) and the manufacture of computers, electronic 
appliances and optical products (4%). Overall, it 
would appear that Austrian companies mainly use AI 
for automating and optimising processes and for in-
creasing efficiency. 
The potentially disruptive nature of AI itself and 
its various applications will also drive structural 
change in Austria. In addition, developing and using 
AI poses various challenges to companies, particular-
ly of a regulatory nature, but also in terms of technol-
ogy, security, privacy and data protection (e.g. per-
sonal data) as well as the skills in using AI that are 
required and actually available (especially the avail-
ability of staff). SMEs in particular face barriers to a 
more widespread use of AI in the form of (high) in-
vestment costs and the shortage of skilled workers 
as well as the issue of the volume and quality of their 
data relevant for AI purposes.
There is currently only limited information avail-
able to determine Austria’s relative position in the 
topic area of AI. The plan to include AI in the next 
(2020) Europe-wide survey of ICT use in companies 
will improve the situation. Amongst other things, 
there is set to be a module containing questions on 
the methods used to conduct 
big data analyses
us-
ing AI technologies. The same survey is expected to 
include a dedicated module on AI in 2021.
The AI Index Steering Committee at Stanford Uni-
versity published country-specific analyses in its 
“Global AI Vibrancy Tool” in 2019. Normalised by 
population, this puts Austria above average for all 
high-wage countries studied in 2018 in terms of the 
economy (expressed as the spread of professionally 
relevant AI skills amongst the general population, 
number of AI-related start-ups established, amount 
of private investment in these start-ups, etc.) and in-
clusion (expressed as the percentage of women au-
thors in relevant AI publications as the only available 
data source). In R&D (based on the number of scien-
tific publications, patents and similar, insofar as the 
data were available), Austria came out below 
average. Overall, Austria has improved its position 
slightly since the first analyses in 2015 and is ahead 
of countries such as Germany, Denmark and Finland. 
In global terms, however, the USA and China are well 
ahead of the rest of the field. Recent analyses by the 
Austrian Patent Office show that the total number of 
AI-related innovations for which a patent has been 
applied has grown sharply, particularly since 2012. 
These analyses, which cover South Korea and the
EU-28 as well as the USA, put Austria in 11th place 
for the last available year (2017), closely behind the 
UK and France. South Korea is the runaway leader 
(followed by Ireland, the USA, Sweden and Finland), 
filing nearly 13 times as many patents per million in-
habitants as Austria. Although Sweden, Finland, Ger-
many and the Netherlands boast a higher patent 
intensity, Austria has enjoyed faster growth since 
2000.

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4. RTI Evaluation Culture 
and Practice

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