Artificial intelligence has emerged as a general purpose technology with far-reaching consequences for industries, places, and people.
The nation’s general readiness to benefit from AI is critical, because the technology is going to play a significant role in economic development given its potential to drive efficiency, innovation, and productivity in every industry, both nationally and within regions.
A new report from Brookings Institution analyzed 387 metro areas using a variety of government and private-sector datasets to assess communities’ ability to create, apply and harness AI.
The benchmarking grouped cities by 14 indicators into three dimensions of readiness: talent, innovation and adoption. Talent measures AI-capable workers, innovation captures research and innovation strength, and adoption charts industry uptake.
Brookings identified the Twin Cities as a member of the Star Hubs cluster because of the metro area’s relatively high number of firms that are already using AI and related tools. The Twin Cities’ designation puts it in a group of a couple dozen metros that includes areas like Atlanta, Austin, Texas, and Denver.