The US university-industry link in the R&D of AI: Back to the origins?

Andrea Borsato and Patrick Llerena

Working Papers of BETA from Bureau d'Economie Théorique et Appliquée, UDS, Strasbourg

Abstract: Contributing to the fast-growing Economics of Artificial Intelligence (AI), this paper examines the close relationship between university and industry for what concerns to the research and development of AI technologies in the USA. Recalling the history of the university-industry relationships in the several phases of the US national system of innovation (NSI), we argue that current collaborations resemble in some respects what happened during the prewar NSI. Yet, the AI R&D presents some peculiarities. Universities are changing their positioning in the innovation process and turning to a research-based training model in the domains concerned by AI. This could potentially change the trajectory of university-industry links, since it is very much in line with the typical Humboldtian perspective that was at work in some European institutes in XVIII century up to US early XX century. At the same time, if the way in which the production of knowledge and the training of the workforce envisages a return to the origins, differences arise in the definition of the main goals, e.g., Sustainable Development Goals, and in the role of stakeholders. The overall discussion also bears some implications for the link between division of knowledge and division of labour.

Keywords: Artificial Intelligence; AI research; University-industry relationship; US national innovation system. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I2 L2 O31 O33 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ain, nep-his and nep-sbm
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://beta.u-strasbg.fr/WP/2024/2024-46.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ulp:sbbeta:2024-46

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Working Papers of BETA from Bureau d'Economie Théorique et Appliquée, UDS, Strasbourg Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ( this e-mail address is bad, please contact ).