WIPO Global Innovation Index 2025: Rankings, Investment Trends and Innovation at a Crossroads

WIPO Global Innovation Index 2025: A Comprehensive Overview

The 18th edition of WIPO’s Global Innovation Index (GII) 2025 provides the definitive assessment of innovation ecosystems across 139 economies, tracking everything from R&D investment and patent filings to technology adoption and socioeconomic impact. Under the theme “Innovation at a Crossroads,” the report captures a pivotal moment: innovation investments are recovering from the 2023 downturn but remain fragile, technology is advancing rapidly across most fronts, and a growing wave of middle-income economies is reshaping the global innovation landscape.

This year’s GII introduces a significant methodological enhancement: for the first time, venture capital deal data is integrated alongside patent filings and scientific publications in the innovation cluster rankings. This addition sharpens the focus on entrepreneurial activity and innovation finance, revealing how the world’s most dynamic ecosystems translate research into commercial value. The result is a more nuanced picture of global innovation that rewards both scientific excellence and market-driven dynamism. For more analysis of how institutions measure global competitiveness, explore our interactive library of research and innovation reports.

Global Innovation Index 2025 Rankings: Who Leads and Who Is Rising

Switzerland tops the Global Innovation Index for the 15th consecutive year with a score of 66.0, maintaining its position as the world’s innovation leader. It ranks first globally in the Creative outputs pillar and secures top five positions across all other pillars except Human capital and research, where it ranks 6th. Sweden holds steady at 2nd place (62.6), leading in Researchers, Global brand value and Knowledge-intensive employment. The United States retains 3rd position (61.7), topping both Market sophistication and Business sophistication pillars, driven by the central role of the private sector in funding R&D.

The Republic of Korea climbs to 4th place (60.0), its highest-ever ranking, underscoring the country’s sustained investment in technology and intellectual property. Singapore follows at 5th (59.9), leading globally in the number of GII indicators ranked first — 10 out of 78 — including High-tech manufacturing, Unicorn valuation and GitHub commits. The United Kingdom (6th), Finland (7th), Netherlands (8th), Denmark (9th) and China (10th) complete the top 10.

China’s entry into the GII top 10 for the first time is one of the headline findings. As the only upper middle-income economy in this elite group, China’s rise reflects massive investment in R&D, scientific output and patent activity. It leads all upper middle-income economies and has produced 24 innovation clusters in the top 100 — more than any other country including the United States (22). By income group, India (38th) leads the lower middle-income group and Rwanda (104th) leads the low-income group, both demonstrating that innovation capacity is not solely determined by national wealth.

Innovation Investment Trends at a Historical Low Point

The GII 2025’s Global Innovation Tracker reveals a concerning pattern: while innovation investments showed signs of recovery in 2024 after the downturn of 2023, growth rates remain at historically low levels. Scientific publications were the standout positive, with research output hitting a record-breaking 2 million articles in 2024, driven by China’s remarkable 14% growth and India’s solid 7.6% increase. The global science engine is running strong — but the funding engine is sputtering.

Global R&D spending grew by 2.9% in 2024, a significant slowdown from the 4.4% increase recorded in 2023 and the lowest growth rate since 2010. Public R&D showed modest recovery, but business R&D outside of the United States and China grew only 1.4%, reflecting weak momentum in many high-income and middle-income economies. Corporate R&D spending reached a record USD 1.3 trillion in 2024, but nominal growth slowed to 3.2% — equivalent to just 1% in real terms — far below the 8% average for the past decade.

The sectoral picture reveals a stark divergence. ICT-related firms, particularly those in AI-intensive sectors, along with software and pharmaceutical companies, expanded their R&D budgets. In contrast, traditional manufacturing firms in automotive and consumer goods cut R&D spending, often in response to sharply reduced revenues. International patent filings stabilised after a rare decline in 2023, but growth of only 0.5% remains fragile with wide disparities across countries and regions. As the report concludes: only scientific publications are truly thriving; most innovation investments show positive but below-trend growth.

Venture Capital: Still in a Downturn Outside AI and the United States

The venture capital analysis in the GII 2025 delivers one of the report’s most striking findings: the apparent VC recovery is a statistical mirage driven by a narrow set of sectors and geographies. Deal values rose 7.7% in 2024, largely propelled by US-based megadeals and surging investment in generative AI. However, excluding these factors, VC activity would have contracted. Most tellingly, the number of VC deals fell 4.4% globally — marking a third consecutive year of decline — signalling persistent investor caution outside a narrow band of opportunities.

The report frames this as a missed opportunity of significant proportions. Venture capital, which had been gradually expanding into a wider set of non-ICT sectors and emerging markets during the preceding decade, now appears to be retreating to its traditional core: the United States and AI- and ICT-related investments. This concentration undermines the earlier momentum toward broader sectoral and geographical diversification that had been channelling risk capital to healthcare, clean energy, agricultural technology and emerging market startups across Latin America, Africa and Southeast Asia.

For innovation policymakers worldwide, the VC data carries important implications. Countries and sectors that had begun building venture capital ecosystems are seeing capital flows recede, not because their innovation potential has diminished but because global investor attention has been captured by the generative AI narrative. The challenge is to sustain the institutional infrastructure — accelerators, fund-of-funds, regulatory frameworks — that supports diverse innovation financing, even as headline capital flows concentrate in a handful of destinations.

Technology Progress: Batteries, Computing and Drug Development

Technology advanced on almost every front in 2024, making this one of the most positive years for technological progress captured by the GII. Supercomputing efficiency soared over 60%, demonstrating the relentless advance of computational power and energy efficiency. Battery prices plummeted 20%, accelerating the clean energy transition and making electric vehicles more accessible to mass markets. Moore’s Law continues to defy doubters, with transistor counts growing 37% and staying remarkably close to the decade-long trend that many had predicted would falter.

Solar power costs have now dropped 90% since 2010, making solar energy 56% cheaper than fossil fuels, with renewable energy costs continuing their downward trajectory. Genome sequencing costs continue to fall, opening new possibilities for personalised medicine and biological research. However, drug development bucked the positive trend, with drug approvals declining 19% and reflecting the innate complexity of pharmaceutical innovation despite advances in underlying technology.

Technology adoption presents a more mixed picture. While connectivity indicators remain strong — with 5G penetration growing 15.1% and fixed broadband expanding 6.3% — the adoption of innovations in areas like safe sanitation, electric vehicles and high-speed rail proceeds at varying speeds across regions. Robot deployments grew 5.1%, and electric car adoption continued its upward trajectory, but the pace of diffusion remains slower than the pace of invention. The gap between technological frontier and real-world deployment represents one of the central challenges highlighted by the “Innovation at a Crossroads” theme.

Middle-Income Innovation Climbers: The Global Shift Since 2013

One of the most consequential trends documented in the GII 2025 is the sustained rise of middle-income innovation economies. China (10th), India (38th), Türkiye (43rd), Viet Nam (44th), the Philippines (50th), Indonesia (55th), Morocco (57th), Albania (67th) and Iran (70th) are the middle-income economies within the GII top 70 that have climbed fastest in the rankings since 2013. This represents a structural shift in global innovation geography, driven by investments in education, digital infrastructure and business sophistication.

The Philippines’ entry into the top 50 is particularly noteworthy — it ranks 1st globally in high-tech exports, demonstrating how strategic positioning in global value chains can drive innovation metrics. Morocco (57th) posted its best-ever result, rising nine places in a single year thanks to strong industrial designs, education investment and intangible asset development. Since 2019, Saudi Arabia (46th), Qatar (48th), Brazil (52nd), Mauritius (53rd), Bahrain (62nd) and Jordan (65th) have been the fastest innovation climbers, reflecting the impact of national diversification strategies and targeted technology investment.

India and Viet Nam stand out as the longest-standing overperformers, exceeding expectations for their level of development for the 15th consecutive year. Rwanda and Ukraine follow close behind in overperformer tenure. The 2025 GII identifies 17 middle- and low-income innovation overperformers, with the highest concentration in Sub-Saharan Africa. This geographic pattern suggests that focused investment in specific innovation pillars — even without high national income — can generate disproportionate results. Conversely, 38 economies underperform relative to their development level, with the highest concentration in Latin America and the Caribbean.

Global Innovation Clusters: Shenzhen-Hong Kong-Guangzhou Leads

The GII 2025 innovation cluster rankings — enhanced by the first-time inclusion of venture capital data — reveal the world’s most dynamic innovation ecosystems. Shenzhen-Hong Kong-Guangzhou tops the global rankings, followed by Tokyo-Yokohama, San Jose-San Francisco, Beijing and Seoul. The inclusion of VC data significantly reshapes the rankings: New York City, London and Los Angeles now join the top 10, propelled by their strong venture capital performance.

The concentration of innovation activity within these clusters is striking. The top 100 innovation clusters collectively account for roughly 70% of global PCT patent filings and VC deal activity, and about half of all scientific publications. The leading 10 clusters alone generate around 40% of PCT filings and 35% of VC deal activity. China leads with 24 clusters in the top 100, followed by the United States with 22, Germany with seven, and India and the United Kingdom with four each.

San Jose-San Francisco emerges as the world’s most innovation-intensive cluster relative to population density, followed by Cambridge (UK), Boston-Cambridge (US) and, remarkably, Ningde (China) — whose rise to fourth place globally in intensity is driven by CATL, the global leader in energy storage technology. Ten clusters entered the top 100 for the first time, including three in the United States (Miami, Phoenix, Salt Lake City) and two in China (Ningbo, Ningde). Dublin, Mexico City and Oslo also debut in the top 100, reflecting the expanding global footprint of knowledge-intensive economic activity.

Innovation Overperformers: Exceeding Expectations at Every Income Level

The GII’s overperformer analysis — which measures innovation output relative to what would be expected given an economy’s level of development — provides crucial context beyond raw rankings. Among high-income economies, Switzerland, Sweden, the United States, the Republic of Korea, the United Kingdom, Finland, the Netherlands, Denmark, Germany, Japan, France, Israel and Estonia all perform above expectation. These economies demonstrate that even at high income levels, policy choices and institutional quality determine whether national innovation potential is fully realised.

At the upper middle-income level, China, Brazil, Indonesia, South Africa, Türkiye, Mauritius, Serbia, Georgia, Mexico, Armenia, North Macedonia, Montenegro, Albania, Iran, Colombia, Moldova, Mongolia, Peru, Jamaica, Botswana, Namibia and El Salvador all exceed expectations. The breadth of this list — spanning every region and a wide range of development stages — underscores that innovation overperformance is achievable regardless of geographic location or historical innovation trajectory.

Among lower middle-income economies, India and Viet Nam lead the overperformers, joined by the Philippines, Morocco, Jordan, Tunisia, Uzbekistan and Senegal. Rwanda stands out as the leading low-income overperformer, followed by Madagascar, Malawi and Burundi. For policymakers in developing economies, these examples demonstrate that targeted investments in education, digital infrastructure, intellectual property systems and business sophistication can generate innovation outputs that significantly exceed what income levels alone would predict. For the latest analyses of how economies compete on innovation, browse our full interactive library.

Technology Adoption Gaps and Socioeconomic Impact

The GII 2025’s socioeconomic impact indicators reveal both progress and persistent challenges. Labour productivity grew 2.5% in 2024, representing a solid if unspectacular pace of improvement. Life expectancy continued its post-pandemic recovery with a 0.7% increase, while poverty declined by 0.6% globally. However, global warming reached +1.29°C in 2024, highlighting the urgency of translating clean energy technology breakthroughs into deployed solutions at scale.

The report identifies a persistent gap between the pace of technological progress and the speed of technology adoption, particularly in developing economies. While 5G networks are expanding rapidly (15.1% growth), electric vehicle adoption (9.7% growth) and cancer radiotherapy access (1.3% growth) are progressing more slowly. Safe sanitation access grew only 1.2%, underscoring how basic infrastructure gaps continue to limit the diffusion of innovations that could significantly improve quality of life. The robot deployment growth of 5.1% and high-speed rail network expansion of 5.1% suggest steady but incremental progress in transforming economic systems through advanced technology.

These adoption gaps have direct implications for the “Innovation at a Crossroads” theme. The world is not short of breakthrough technologies — battery costs, computing power, renewable energy and genomics are all advancing rapidly. The crossroads lies in whether the institutional, financial and policy frameworks exist to translate these advances into broadly shared improvements in productivity, health, environmental sustainability and economic opportunity. The concentration of VC funding in AI and the US, combined with the slowdown in R&D growth across much of the world, raises the risk that innovation benefits become increasingly concentrated rather than broadly distributed.

Policy Implications: Navigating the Innovation Crossroads

The WIPO Global Innovation Index 2025 concludes with a clear message: the global innovation system is at a crossroads where investment decisions, policy frameworks and international cooperation will determine whether innovation serves as a force for broad-based prosperity or becomes increasingly concentrated among a small number of economies, sectors and firms. The fragile recovery in innovation investment, the retreat of venture capital to AI and the United States, and the widening gap between technological possibility and real-world adoption all demand proactive policy responses.

For high-income economies, the priorities are maintaining R&D investment momentum in the face of fiscal pressures, ensuring that the AI revolution drives productivity gains across the broader economy rather than concentrating in a handful of firms, and supporting the institutional frameworks — intellectual property protection, research collaboration, startup ecosystems — that sustain long-term innovation capacity. For middle-income climbers like India, China, Türkiye and Viet Nam, the challenge is sustaining upward momentum through continued investment in human capital, digital infrastructure and the intellectual property systems that translate innovation inputs into outputs.

For the international community, the GII data underscores the importance of preserving open innovation networks even as geopolitical tensions create pressures toward fragmentation. The world’s top innovation clusters operate within global networks of scientific collaboration, patent licensing and venture capital flows. Disrupting these networks — through trade barriers, technology export controls or restrictions on researcher mobility — risks undermining the very ecosystem that generates the technological breakthroughs on which economic growth and sustainable development depend. The innovation crossroads demands choices that balance legitimate security concerns with the fundamental openness that innovation requires to thrive. For more on global innovation policy analyses, explore our interactive library.