How competitive are PhD admissions currently [D]

Hi,

how hard is it currently to get a PhD position in machine Learning? Like what are the requirements to get to a decent mid tier program (= they publish regularly at respected journals and their work gets read my some people)? How is it in different regions e.g US, Europe, etc..

I am about to finish my masters and am wondering if I need to sweep in an unpaid guided research project to extend my network.