Keeping Top AI Talent in the United States

Abstract

Talent is core to U.S. competitiveness in artificial intelligence, and international graduate students are a large source of AI talent for the United States. Retaining them in this country as they transition into the workforce is key. Graduate student retention has historically been a core U.S. strength, but that strength is endangered by recent events.

Career Preferences of AI Talent

“…The next most common countries of birth were China (eight percent) and India (seven percent). This is in line with recent CSET research that finds 55 percent of STEM U.S. PhDs are U.S. citizens, while Chinese and Indian nationals make up 16 percent and six percent respectively, and that between 82-92 percent of U.S. AI PhDs stay in the United States to work in the first five years after degree completion 18. As an additional test of representativeness, we compared our sample to CSET's full dataset of U.S. AI PhDs from top-ranked programs.…”

“…In terms of gender, respondents were predominantly male (74 percent), a proportion considered representative of the field. 17 19 The prevalence of academics in this sample may be the result of a greater willingness among academics to complete the survey and/or the product of the relative ease of email access to talent working in academia as opposed to the private sector (e.g., valid, identifiable emails listed on university websites, fewer email blockers or restrictions around study participation). While our sample appropriately reflects the predominance of academia and industry in attracting top AI talent, the potential overrepresentation of academia may skew our results toward the preferences of a subset of AI talent.…”

Overseas Professionals and Technology Transfer to China

“…52 In the artificial intelligence field specifically, nearly 90 percent of Chinese graduates remain in the United States five years after completing their programs. 53 Nonetheless, Chinese media outlets frequently boast about how many people have returned to start businesses or commercialize foreign products.…”

Skilled and Mobile: Survey Evidence of AI Researchers' Immigration Preferences

“…Such research is particularly salient amongst private companies, think tanks, and research and governmental institutions [22,47]. For example, the Center for Security and Emerging Technology (CSET) has an entire report series on global AI talent [25,32,66].…”