Where A.I. jobs are exploding in number (it’s not in Silicon Valley)

This is the web version of Eye on A.I., Fortune’s weekly newsletter covering artificial intelligenceand business. To get it delivered weekly to your in-box, sign up here.William Gibson, the science fiction writer, famously said that the future is already here, it’s just not evenly distributed. Well, that’s certainly true of A.I. adoption.Where are companies seeking employees with machine learning, data science and A.I.-related skills? Within the U.S., the jobs marketplace ZipRecruiter recently found that just four states dominate: California, Washington, New York and Massachusetts. Together, they account for 90% of all ZipRecruiter-advertised jobs that required advanced-A.I. skills, and 60% of all A.I. jobs. Given that these states host of the headquarters and large branch offices of the FAANG companies, that’s not surprising. But, as the cost of living skyrockets in many of these tech hubs, ZipRecruiter found that the quest for A.I. talent is rapidly picking up steam in five other states: Colorado, Utah, Virginia, Texas and Arizona. The growth in A.I.-related job postings in these states over the past two years was 93%, and nearly three times faster than in the four leading locations. ZipRecruiter also found some parts of the U.S. where companies seem to be seriously behind in terms of hosting in-house A.I. teams: Mississippi, Alaska, Kentucky, West Virginia and Louisiana. This does not necessarily mean those businesses aren’t using A.I.—but it is probably an indication that if they are doing so, they’re purchasing tech from vendors and consultants, rather than building it on their own.That’s the U.S. For what’s happening internationally and across industry sectors, CB Insights’ latest AI 100 looked at which A.I.-related startups are doing best. The firm combines indicators of R&D strength, such as patents, with data on funding, existing customers and potential market sizes.U.S.-based startups dominate the list, accounting for more than half of the 100 companies. Surprisingly, China, despite its A.I. ambitions and much-touted leadership in some areas such as facial recognition, had just four startups in the top 100. (That’s fewer than Canada, which had six. And the U.K. punched well above its population size, with seven.) Some very notable absences from the list: No startups from Australia or New Zealand, none from traditional tech powerhouse South Korea, and just one each from the entire continents of South America and Africa. CB Insights’ drew from across 15 different industry sectors. It’s striking how crowded some fields were: Healthcare boasted nine of the top 100 and finance and insurance (which were combined into a single category) five. Other sectors, such as real estate and legal, each had just one company on the list.Given the size of those sectors, I doubt that’s because the market opportunity isn’t there. Instead, it probably suggests industries that are late technology adopters in general.If you’re thinking of creating an A.I. startup, it might........

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