Shenzhen-Hong Kong-Guangzhou has emerged as the world's leading innovation cluster, according to the 2026 Global Innovation Index (GII) by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), highlighting the growing importance of cities and regions where research, technology, investment, and entrepreneurship converge.
The Chinese cluster ranked first among the world's 100 largest concentrations of innovation activity, ahead of Tokyo-Yokohama in Japan and San Jose-San Francisco in the United States. Seoul in South Korea placed fourth, while Beijing took fifth position.
WIPO's ranking measures innovation activity below the national level, identifying geographic areas with high concentrations of inventors, scientific researchers, companies and investment.
It uses three main indicators: international patent applications filed under the WIPO Patent Cooperation Treaty, scientific publications and venture capital deals.
In an update on Tuesday, the organisation said the approach helps identify areas where universities, researchers, entrepreneurs, investors and businesses interact to create and commercialise new ideas.
“Shenzhen-Hong Kong-Guangzhou, Tokyo-Yokohama, San Jose-San Francisco, Seoul and Beijing are the world’s five biggest ‘GII Innovation Clusters,’ or concentrations of innovative activity identified by WIPO through the analysis of international patent filings, scientific publications and venture capital deals,” WIPO stated.
The Shanghai-Suzhou cluster ranked sixth, followed by New York City in seventh. London was eighth, Boston-Cambridge ninth and Paris 10th, giving Europe two representatives in the global top 10.
The ranking points to the continued concentration of global innovation in China, the United States and other major technology-driven economies.
China has 25 clusters among the world's top 100, while the United States has 20. Together, the two countries account for nearly half of the world's largest innovation clusters.
Germany follows with seven clusters, led by Munich in 28th place. India and the United Kingdom each have four clusters.
Bengaluru is India's highest-ranked cluster at 24th, while London is the UK's leading representative at eighth.
The findings also show the growing geographical spread of innovation beyond the world's established technology centres.
Six other middle-income economies have clusters in the top 100: Brazil, Egypt, the Islamic Republic of Iran, Malaysia, Mexico and Türkiye. São Paulo ranks 49th, Mexico City 82nd, Cairo 86th, Istanbul 51st, Kuala Lumpur 53rd and Tehran 74th.
Cairo is the only African cluster to make the top 100.
Regionally, South-eastern Asia, Eastern Asia and Oceania account for the largest share of the leading clusters, with 36. Europe follows with 30, while Northern America has 23.
The remaining 11 are distributed across Central and Southern Asia, Northern Africa and Western Asia, and Latin America and the Caribbean.
“The world’s leading clusters are building blocks of national innovation ecosystems and show the importance of strong connections among research, enterprise, talent and investment. Their spread across regions reflects the increasing capacity of economies to translate innovation into economic and social impact.” WIPO Director General Daren Tang said.
WIPO also assessed innovation intensity by comparing innovative activity with population size.
San Jose-San Francisco topped this measure, followed by Cambridge in the United Kingdom, Ningde in China, Boston-Cambridge in the United States and Oxford in the UK.
Daejeon in South Korea entered the intensity top 10 for the first time, ranking 10th.
The cluster ranking forms part of WIPO's 19th Global Innovation Index, which examines innovation performance across nearly 140 economies.
The 2026 GII, themed “Powering entrepreneurs at the frontier of science,” focuses on how scientific breakthroughs can develop into deep-science start-ups and spinouts.
The full 2026 Global Innovation Index is scheduled for launch at WIPO headquarters in Geneva on September 29, 2026, while the innovation cluster findings provide an early picture of where global research, investment and technological development are most concentrated.