Data-Center Technology Patents: Who Leads, Where the Gaps Are 2026
- 41.7% concentration. The top 5 assignees hold 19,561 of 46,874 records in scope — filing here means contesting occupied ground, not open field.
- Filing has cooled from its peak. 2022 was the high point at 2,980 records; the 2021→2024 span shows a -16% pull-back to 2,136, though 2025-26 figures are still filling in.
- Core compute dominates the classification mix. G06F digital data processing touches 25.9% of all records — more than double the next largest class, H04L transmission at 11.6%.
Filing growth compares 2021 (2,538 records) with 2024 (2,136) — a three-year span. 2024 is the most recent year we treat as complete: publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, so 2025 onwards are still filling in and any growth rate that ends there would understate the field. Top-5 share is the combined record count of the five largest assignees divided by all 46,874 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
What this landscape covers
This dataset tracks 46,874 published patent records at the intersection of data-center infrastructure and core compute mechanics — cache coherence, compute kernels, memory access, task parallelism, task scheduling and hardware accelerators — filed between 2015 and the 2026 data cut-off. It captures the claim space where general-purpose data-center hardware and software meet the scheduling and memory-management techniques that make large-scale compute workable.
Because publication trails filing by roughly eighteen months, the most recent one to two years in any trend understate real filing activity; treat 2024 as the last complete year for growth comparisons and read 2025-26 as provisional.
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Filing trends and technology composition
Two views of the same 46,874-record set: the filing curve over time, and the IPC subclasses that carry the claims.
Filing trend, 2017-2026
Filings rose from 796 in 2017 to a peak of 2,980 in 2022, then eased to 2,136 by 2024 — a -16% move over that three-year span. The 2025 (partial) and 2026 figures will rise as later publications post; they should not be read as a decline yet.
Technology composition by IPC subclass
G06F (electric digital data processing) appears in 25.9% of the 46,874 records, and H04L (digital information transmission) in 11.6%. Image and AI-adjacent classes — G06T, G06N, G06V — each sit in the low single digits, and G07F and B60W mark the outer edge of the search, showing the field's reach into vending/kiosk and vehicle-control adjacent filings. Shares add to more than 100% because a single record can carry several IPC classes.
Shares are the percentage of the 46,874 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Data-Center Technology Patent Landscape with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about data-center technology patent landscape and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaA representative claim and the most-cited prior art
US20240201855A1 — In-place memory copy during remote data transfer in heterogeneous compute environment
Filed by Intel Corporation and published 2024-06-20, this application covers an apparatus that lets a hardware accelerator's network interface card write incoming data directly into memory pages that its own access-control bits confirm are registered and free, then updates those bits after the write — avoiding an intermediate copy step during remote data transfer in a heterogeneous compute environment.Narrow but concrete: the claim turns on the access-control-bit check tied to page tables maintained by the MMU, not on remote-direct-memory-access generally.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US20050120160A1 | System and method for managing virtual servers | 1,602 |
| 2 | US20030046396A1 | Systems and methods for managing resource utilization in information management environments | 1,408 |
| 3 | US20020152305A1 | Systems and methods for resource utilization analysis in information management environments | 1,266 |
| 4 | US6611755B1 | Vehicle tracking, communication and fleet management system | 1,023 |
| 5 | US20210144517A1 | Multi-entity resource, security, and service management in edge computing deployments | 843 |
| 6 | US20220066456A1 | Obstacle recognition method for autonomous robots | 760 |
| 7 | US10885698B2 | Method for programmable timeouts of tree traversal mechanisms in hardware | 759 |
| 8 | US20110276951A1 | Managing runtime execution of applications on cloud computing systems | 749 |
| 9 | US20200259896A1 | Industrial Automation with 5G and Beyond | 746 |
| 10 | US20020049608A1 | Systems and methods for providing differentiated business services in information management environments | 731 |
Citation counts favour older records simply by virtue of being in the corpus longer; read them as a measure of influence on later filings, not of current relevance.
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Browse MCP servers →What the numbers say about where the field stands
Three cuts of the same dataset — concentration, technology mix and momentum — that matter for a filing or freedom-to-operate decision.
The top of the field is dense
The leading assignee alone accounts for 6,603 records, and the fifth-placed holder still files 1,671. Combined, the top 5 hold 19,561 records — 41.7% of everything in scope — before the ranking even reaches its tenth entrant at 843.
Core digital-processing claims dominate
G06F carries roughly one in four records, more than double H04L's 11.6% share. AI-adjacent classes (G06N, G06V) and image processing (G06T) sit well behind, suggesting most of the claim activity is still in general compute mechanics rather than AI-specific hardware framing.
Volume has pulled back from its 2022 peak
Filings peaked at 2,980 in 2022 and eased to 2,136 by 2024. Several of the largest assignees also show sharp year-on-year drops in the latest tracked year, though that year is still incomplete in the underlying publication data.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to data-center technology patent landscape, with the prior art for and against each one.
Who is filing, and where the gate sits
A small group of assignees hold the majority share; behind them is a long tail of single- and few-filing entrants competing for the remainder.
One assignee sets the pace
The top-ranked assignee holds 6,603 records — more than the combined total of positions six through ten in the ranking. That scale typically means dense prior art across core scheduling and memory-access claims.
The gap to the tail is steep
By the tenth position the count has fallen to 843 records, well under a sixth of the leader's total. Positions beyond the top 10 combine for less than half of all records in scope, meaning most of the ranked 100 hold comparatively thin portfolios.
Co-assignment is limited and inventor-anchored
Only 10 co-assignee pairs appear in this dataset, and the strongest links a single corporate assignee to individual named inventors rather than to another company — a sign that most filing here is done in-house rather than through joint ventures.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| NVIDIA Corporation | 95 | -77% |
| Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. | 40 | -59% |
| ARISTOCRAT TECHNOLOGIES INC | 15 | -81% |
| Intel Corporation | 13 | -94% |
| Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC | 4 | -82% |
| Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. (Korea) | 3 | -92% |
| Micron Technology, Inc. | 1 | -97% |
| Citrix Systems, Inc. | 0 | — |
Where to take this from here
The landscape numbers point to specific next questions rather than a single conclusion.
Check freedom-to-operate against the top 5
With 41.7% of all records held by five assignees, a freedom-to-operate review for any core scheduling or memory-access claim should start there before looking at the long tail.
Run a claim comparison in EurekaWatch the 2025-26 filings as they complete
The apparent pull-back from the 2022 peak is only confirmed through 2024; publication lag means the true 2025-26 filing level will not be clear for another year or so.
Track filing trends in EurekaProbe the under-claimed branches directly
Cache coherence for accelerator-attached memory and cross-die scheduling both sit behind the dominant G06F/H04L classes in filing density — worth a targeted search before assuming the space is closed.
Explore white space in EurekaCommon questions about this landscape
The ranking in this dataset is led by a single assignee with 6,603 records out of 46,874 in scope, with the fifth-ranked holder at 1,671 and the tenth at 843. Together the top 5 account for 41.7% of all records, and the top 10 for 53.3%. That leaves the remaining 90 ranked assignees, plus unranked filers, splitting under half the field, so most portfolios outside the leading group are comparatively thin.
Filings rose steadily from 796 in 2017 to a peak of 2,980 in 2022, then eased to 2,136 by 2024 — a decline of 16% over that three-year span. Figures for 2025 and 2026 are still incomplete because publication typically lags filing by about eighteen months, so it is premature to call this a sustained slowdown rather than a partial pull-back from an unusually high 2022 peak.
General digital data processing under IPC class G06F is the single largest category, appearing in 25.9% of the 46,874 records, more than double the next largest class, H04L digital information transmission, at 11.6%. AI-model computing (G06N), image processing (G06T) and image/video recognition (G06V) each sit in the low single digits. Because a record can carry multiple IPC classes, these shares sum to more than 100%, reflecting overlap rather than double counting of records.
The clearest gaps sit adjacent to the dominant compute classes rather than far outside them: cache-coherence protocols specific to accelerator-attached memory, cross-die task-scheduling fabrics, and access-control-bit management schemes for heterogeneous memory all show thinner filing density than the core G06F and H04L classes. These are narrower, more technically specific claim areas rather than entirely uncharted fields, which is exactly why they are easier to stake out with a well-drafted first claim.
This Intel application, published 2024-06-20, claims an apparatus for in-place memory copy during remote data transfer in a heterogeneous compute environment. The mechanism is specific: it checks access-control bits tied to page tables maintained by a memory management unit to confirm destination memory pages on a hardware accelerator are registered and free, writes the incoming data directly there, then updates those bits. It blocks close variations of that same access-control-bit-gated direct-write approach, not remote-direct-memory-access techniques generally.
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Disclaimer. This page is generated from Patsnap Eureka data drawn from a limited snapshot of global patent and scientific-literature records, and is provided for general information and reference only.
Patent data carries inherent limitations: recent filings (typically the most recent 18–24 months) are under-counted due to standard publication lag; counts may be reported at either a patent-family or a patent-record basis and are not always directly comparable; classification, applicant-name, and citation data may contain errors, duplicates, or omissions; and the underlying search query defines and constrains the scope shown. As a result, the analysis may be incomplete or inaccurate and may not reflect the full technology landscape.
Nothing on this page constitutes an exhaustive prior-art, novelty, freedom-to-operate, or validity search, nor does it constitute legal, financial, investment, or professional advice, and it should not be relied upon as such. Any patent, commercial, or strategic decision should be verified independently and reviewed with qualified patent, legal, and domain professionals. Patsnap makes no warranties, express or implied, as to the accuracy, completeness, or fitness for any particular purpose of the information presented.
Machine translation. Assignee and organisation names originally recorded in Chinese, Japanese or Korean have been rendered into English by an AI translation step so that the tables stay readable. These renderings are best-effort and may not match a company’s registered English name; the original name is what the underlying patent record carries, and it is what any Eureka query launched from this page uses.