Jobs in artificial intelligence are clustered around a short list of "superstar" cities and "early adopter" centers, according to a new report from the nonprofit Brookings Institution.
So far, none of them are located in Florida.
San Francisco and San Jose, California alone are home to about four times as many artificial intelligence companies and job postings as the next tier of 13 early adopter metro areas, the report said. All together, those 15 metro areas (including New York, Boston, Seattle, Austin and Raleigh, North Carolina), comprise two-thirds of the country's "AI assets and capabilities."
"As an innovation matter, the nation’s hyper-concentrated tech geography may be narrowing the range of possible tech advancements and creating harmful imbalances among firms, local ecosystems, and the resources they command," the think tank reported.
Those imbalances tend to create large pools of high-skill tech workers in a handful of coastal cities while leaving lower-skilled talent behind. At the same time, it can spark a "brain drain" in other regions as workers relocate for better opportunities.
Job postings in generative AI, which uses prompts to create unique content like text or images (think ChatGPT) is even more concentrated. According to the report, nearly half of all generative AI job postings uploaded over the past year were located in just six metro areas: San Francisco, San Jose, New York, Los Angeles, Boston and Seattle.
"If generative AI is to boost prosperity in more places around the country, it will likely require a degree of intentional investment — most notably, from the federal government — in new regions," Brookings reported.
It's not all bad news for Florida. The report identified multiple Sunshine State metros as a "potential adoption center," including the Miami-area, Orlando and Tampa.
Florida is also making moves to improve its data and computational resources through industry-university partners. The report noted that the University of Florida is gaining relevance after entering a $70 million partnership with NVIDIA to create an AI-centric data center that is reportedly home to the most powerful university-owned supercomputer in the U.S.
