Mapping the Emerging Literature on AI Centers of Excellence: A Bibliometric Review of Deployment, Governance, and Capability-Building Research
Main article
Abstract
Artificial intelligence centres of excellence (AI CoEs) have emerged as purpose-built organisational units designed to accelerate the deployment, governance, and enterprise-wide capability building of AI technologies. Despite rapid practitioner interest, the scholarly landscape on AI CoEs remains fragmented across multiple disciplines, and no systematic bibliometric overview of this field has yet been published. This study conducts a bibliometric review of 1,247 peer-reviewed documents published between 2016 and 2025, retrieved from Scopus and Web of Science using a structured query protocol. The analysis applies publication-trend tracking, geographic-distribution mapping, keyword co-occurrence analysis, and thematic clustering to identify the structural and intellectual contours of the field. Five major thematic clusters are identified: AI strategy and policy, capability building, AI governance and ethics, deployment frameworks, and digital transformation ecosystems. The United States, the United Kingdom, and China together account for more than half of the global output. Publication volume grew more than tenfold over the review period, with the sharpest acceleration occurring after 2020. Governance-related research has overtaken deployment-focused work in recent years, reflecting a broader disciplinary shift toward responsible and trustworthy AI. The review finds that current research remains disproportionately concentrated in high-income economies and that cross-sectoral comparative studies of AI CoE effectiveness are notably scarce. A set of future research directions is proposed, covering institutional design, measurement frameworks, sector-specific governance, and Global South participation. The article contributes a structured, evidence-based map that can guide researchers, policymakers, and organisational leaders seeking to understand or establish AI centres of excellence.
