China Joins Top 10 in Global Innovation Index 2025
On 16 September 2025, the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) released its 18th edition of Global Innovation Index (GII). Themed "Innovation at a Crossroads", GII 2025 report reveals the innovation performance of 139 economies in a time of economic uncertainty and technological transformation, where after a decade of rapid expansion, R&D growth has declined to its slowest since the global financial crisis and global venture capital deals have not recovered from the severe downturn in 2023, while breakthrough technologies in AI and quantum computing are rapidly advancing and collaborative models evolving to address global challenges.
The GII rankings and analysis are based on the results from an analytical framework using two sub-indices of innovation input and innovation output, which together measure seven elements, namely, institutions, human capital and research, infrastructure, market sophistication, business sophistication, knowledge and technology outputs, and creative outputs of an economy, under 21 secondary indicators and 78 sub-indicators.
In terms of leading innovators, ranked according to overall innovation scores derived by the average of the input and output sub-Indices, the top innovator in GII 2025 was Switzerland, holder of this position for the 15 consecutive year; following were Sweden and the US, retaining their 2nd and 3rd positions respectively for the third year in a row; Korea climbed two spots to 4th place; Singapore and the UK both slipped down one notch to 5th and 6th respectively; Finland and the Netherlands maintained the position of 7th and 8th as in the previous year; Denmark rose one place to 9th spot, and China moved up from 11th to 10th, entering the global top ten for the first time.
Apart from rising to the top 10 in GII rankings, China was ranked 5th in innovation output and 19th in innovation input in GII 2025. In several indicators China maintained its first place, including number of applications for design patent, utility model patent, and trademark filed by Chinese nationals. And it newly claimed 1st overall in knowledge and technology outputs, and ranked 2nd in number of invention patent applications filed by Chinese nationals as well as gross expenditure on business-financed R&D.
For a third consecutive year China hosted the most top 100 clusters (24), with the Shenzhen-Hong Kong-Guangzhou cluster taking the top spot for the first time, and the Beijing (4th) and Shanghai-Suzhou (6th) clusters also among the top ten. The report further noted that China's high-tech exports and its position within global value chains continued to strengthen, especially in strategic sectors such as AI, semiconductors, and green technologies.
