GII 2024: Switzerland, Sweden, and the United States continue to dominate

A woman greets a robot at Geneva's 2024 Global Summit on Artificial Intelligence

Switzerland, Sweden, the United States, Singapore, and the United Kingdom are the world's most innovative economies, with China ranking 11th and remaining the only middle-income economy in the top 30 of the Global Innovation Index, according to Thursday's WIPO's Global Innovation Index 2024.

This year's GII focuses on "social entrepreneurship"—using private sector practices to achieve positive social change. It will guide policymakers, business leaders, and others using human ingenuity.

Key findings:

The Global Innovation Index 2024 shows significant weakness in critical indicators of future innovation activity, with the 2020-2022 innovation investment boom reversing. Against rising interest rates, venture capital financing fell by about 40% in 2023, R&D spending declined, and the number of international patent applications and scientific publications fell.

However, WIPO Director General Daren Tang noted that technological progress will remain strong in 2023, with technology applications deepening, mainly in healthcare, computing power, electric batteries, 5G, robotics, and electric vehicles. This year's GII also showed positive trends in key indicators, including a decline in global poverty and an increase in labor productivity and life expectancy.

Many countries have outperformed expectations.

China ranks 11th out of 130 economies in the GII and remains the only middle-income economy in the top 30. A total of 19 economies outperformed expectations in terms of innovation relative to their level of development. India, the Republic of Moldova, and Viet Nam have exceeded expectations for 14 consecutive years.

Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Brazil, Indonesia, Mauritius, and Pakistan have risen the fastest in the GII rankings in recent years (in order of ranking). Indonesia, Pakistan, and Uzbekistan beat expectations for the third year in a row, and Brazil beat expectations for the fourth consecutive year.