Atlas report
AI researchers in Sweden
KTH Royal Institute of Technology is the largest, with 623 indexed researchers, 1.5 times Linköping University behind it. One institution sets the tone for the country.
The short answer
4 833 researchers in the index have an institution in Sweden, the 20th largest count among 132 countries.
Sweden counts 456 indexed AI researchers per million inhabitants, 5.1 times the world rate of 89.
Sweden holds 0.7% of the researchers with a known country and 0.1% of the world's population, 5.1 times its demographic weight.
What stands out
Industry employs 21% of Sweden's indexed AI researchers; worldwide the share is 8.8%, so the country runs at 2.4 times the average.
The subject where Sweden weighs most against the rest of the world is Software Engineering Research: 1.8% of its subject assignments work on it, 1.9 times the world share of 1.0%.
Reinforcement Learning in Robotics is the subject newcomers in Sweden pick up fastest: 33 started on it between 2023 and 2025, and its share of new entrants is 1.7 times its share in the previous window.
Subjects
Topic Modeling is the largest subject in Sweden, carried by 5.1% of its subject assignments.
Subject reports: Natural Language Processing Techniques, Multimodal Machine Learning Applications, Reinforcement Learning in Robotics, Generative Adversarial Networks and Image Synthesis, Adversarial Robustness in Machine Learning.
| Subject | Researchers | Share here | Share worldwide |
|---|---|---|---|
| Topic Modeling | 493 | 5.1% | 7.9% |
| Advanced Neural Network Applications | 343 | 3.5% | 4.4% |
| Natural Language Processing Techniques | 340 | 3.5% | 4.3% |
| Multimodal Machine Learning Applications | 254 | 2.6% | 3.9% |
| Reinforcement Learning in Robotics | 211 | 2.2% | 1.9% |
| Generative Adversarial Networks and Image Synthesis | 201 | 2.1% | 2.6% |
| Software Engineering Research | 179 | 1.8% | 1.0% |
| Adversarial Robustness in Machine Learning | 160 | 1.6% | 1.9% |
Newcomers by year
Sweden gained 570 new researchers between 2023 and 2025, 1.1 times the 532 of the three years before; the world ratio is 1.1.
In 2025, the last full year, Sweden gained 0.9 times as many new researchers as in an average year of the three before; the world figure is 0.8.
| First publication | New in Sweden | Share of the world's newcomers |
|---|---|---|
| 2019 | 152 | 0.8% |
| 2020 | 155 | 0.7% |
| 2021 | 163 | 0.7% |
| 2022 | 214 | 0.6% |
| 2023 | 187 | 0.6% |
| 2024 | 199 | 0.7% |
| 2025 | 184 | 0.7% |
Institutions
The three largest institutions, KTH Royal Institute of Technology first, hold 30% of the country's indexed researchers.
KTH Royal Institute of Technology is the largest, with 623 indexed researchers, 1.5 times Linköping University behind it. One institution sets the tone for the country.
| Institution | Researchers | Share of the country |
|---|---|---|
| KTH Royal Institute of Technology | 623 | 13% |
| Linköping University | 412 | 8.5% |
| Chalmers University of Technology | 397 | 8.2% |
Compared with its peers
Read against Israel and Russia, the two nearest countries by headcount, the differences are in the rates, not the totals. The gap that stands out is the share working in a company: 21% here against 8.1% for those two. Reports: AI researchers in Israel, AI researchers in Russia.
| Sweden | Israel | Russia | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Researchers | 4 833 | 4 612 | 5 100 |
| Per million inhabitants | 456 | 471 | 35 |
| In a company | 21% | 13% | 2.8% |
| Early career | 46% | 58% | 58% |
| Newcomers, recent against previous window | 1.1 | 1.0 | 0.9 |
Common questions
- How many AI researchers are there in Sweden?
- 4 833 researchers in the Founding Hires index have an institution in Sweden, 0.7% of all profiles with a known country, as of October 2026.
- Where do you find AI researchers in Sweden?
- KTH Royal Institute of Technology, 623, Linköping University, 412, Chalmers University of Technology, 397. Together they hold 30% of the country's indexed researchers.
- What is Sweden strongest in?
- Software Engineering Research, at 1.9 times the world share.
- Is the pool of AI researchers in Sweden growing?
- Yes, at the world's pace. Between 2023 and 2025, 570 people in Sweden published for the first time, against 532 over the three years before, a ratio of 1.1 where the world sits at 1.1.
The names behind the numbers
Every count on this page is a list in the index.
Search it by subject and country, and get an alert before they come free.