A Half-Century of Artificial Intelligence: A Global Mapping of Academic Research Trends and Leading Hubs

Artificial intelligence (AI) is without a doubt the term of the moment, a true revolution that should be understood not only from the technical perspective but from a geographical and evolutive one as well.Considering its clear momentum, the current paper aims to construct an analysis framework that can explore the AI academic path, in a 50-year window of time, integrating the past, current, and future perspectives.This will be done through a bibliometric analysis, having as a data source the entire collection of Web of Science AI publications.Furthermore, the paper will be split into three research objectives, starting with an initial exploration and prediction of the AI publication trend, a mapping of the global academic centres, and an in-depth exploration of the two leading hubs: the USA and China.Thus, using Python and VOSViewer, the current approach can distinctively underscore the dynamic nature of AI from its beginnings up to a very recent moment (2024), while also highlighting the domain breakdown, topic networks, and country specifics.