San Jose, Seattle and San Francisco are the country's AI job hotspots, a new analysis finds — though some other perhaps more surprising metros round out the top 10.

Why it matters: As AI emerges as the hottest new thing in tech, cities outside Silicon Valley have a chance to get in on the action — and reap the potentially lucrative economic rewards.

How it works: The estimates come by way of UMD-LinkUp, a collaboration between the University of Maryland, job listings platform LinkUp and consultancy/executive firm Outrigger Group.

• The researchers are using AI language models to sift through LinkUp job listings for AI jobs, defined as those that require technical skills to either create or use AI models.
• Their use of AI significantly enhances their accuracy compared to traditional keyword filtering, the researchers say.

Zoom in: San Jose (142.4 new AI jobs listed per 100,000 residents), Seattle (74.4) and San Francisco (49.3) led the way in the first quarter of 2024 among cities with at least 500,000 residents and 25 newly posted jobs.

• In those cities, AI jobs accounted for about 7.5%, 4% and 3.2% of all new Q1 job listings, respectively.
• For comparison, there were 11.7 AI-related jobs posted for every 100,000 residents nationally in Q1.

Yes, but: Austin (39.9), Washington, D.C. (35.3) and Northwest Arkansas (24.7) also had strong showings, as did Raleigh (19.7) and Atlanta (19).

Between the lines: The defense industry's urgent interest in AI is likely driving D.C.'s numbers, says Anil Gupta, a UMD professor who's co-leading the project.

The bottom line: While much of America's AI workforce is concentrated in Silicon Valley, other areas — notably Texas and the Washington, D.C. metro — are emerging as strong second-tier contenders.