Governing AI Innovation Ecosystems: A Triple Helix Network Analysis of Global AI Research Hubs

• In Event: Governance Ecosystems: Innovation, Institutional Design, and Policy Outcomes

Abstract

As artificial intelligence (AI) emerges as a general-purpose technology (OECD, 2025), governments are investing in dedicated AI research hubs, yet similar investments have produced markedly different ecosystems. Drawing on Etzkowitz’s Triple Helix framework, this study asks how the institutional configuration of a hub shapes the university–industry–government relations it organizes. It compares three hubs: the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI), a non-profit public-private partnership of universities, firms, and government; the Alan Turing Institute (ATI), a university-led national institute; and the RIKEN Center for Advanced Intelligence Project (RIKEN AIP), a government-led center. Combining three layers of relations – formal partnerships, talent circulation, and co-publication networks (2017–2026) – with a supplementary analysis of patent-to-paper citations, the study finds that each configuration leaves a distinct network signature. ATI connects the most diverse set of sectors, including international partners, and is the least constrained broker; DFKI draws the most industry partners and shows the strongest technological uptake but depends most on the hub; and RIKEN AIP is the most centralized and domestically anchored. Across all three, declared partnerships mirror the hub’s configuration, whereas talent circulation and co-publication converge on academic and international partners.

Author

• Saebom Jin, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology
  Presenting Author