WIPO released the latest Global Innovation Index (GII) ranking of the world's top 100 innovation clusters.-Overseas News-Shenzhen deep trust patent Agency Co., LTD

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WIPO released the latest Global Innovation Index (GII) ranking of the world's top 100 innovation clusters.

Release Time：

2025-09-05

Global innovation landscape shifts toward market orientation

——Exclusive interview with BIT professor Yin Ximing

　　On September 1, the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) released the latest Global Innovation Index (GII) ranking of the world's top 100 innovation clusters. The addition of venture capital (VC) deal activity as a new metric has reshuffled the global ranking. What new highlights have emerged in this year's list? And what impact will this new metric have? In this edition of IP Dialogue, we spoke with Professor Yin Ximing, Director of the Department of Public Administration, School of Management at Beijing Institute of Technology (BIT), for an in-depth analysis of the changes and implications for the global innovation landscape.

　　Q1: VC investment activity helps capture how scientific and technological knowledge translates into startup creation and, ultimately, new goods and services in the marketplace. This year, WIPO included VC deal activity as one of the metrics. What motivated this move, and how will it impact the global innovation landscape?

　　Yin: The addition of VC deal activity reflects a profound shift in the global innovation evaluation system from being research-driven to market-driven. The rationale is clear: VC plays a critical role in bridging the gap between technological research and industrial application, energizing innovation ecosystems, and enhancing overall innovation performance. Traditional innovation metrics have long focused on patent filings and academic publications. While these indicate the vibrancy of basic research, they fall short in directly measuring the commercialization of innovations. By introducing VC deal activity, WIPO can better evaluate both the innovative strength and economic value of innovation clusters. This highlights not only the efficiency of technology transfer and commercialization but also the importance of large-scale application, demonstration, and industrialization of new technologies, products, and contexts.

　　Looking at this year's ranking, innovation clusters with strong VC investment activity such as San Jose-San Francisco, London, and Hangzhou clusters all rose in position. This shows that innovation is no longer confined to university labs or research institutes, but increasingly tied to market forces. Overall, the adoption of VC deal activity encourages clusters to focus more on market demand, pursue research with commercial application, and accelerate context-driven technology transfer and commercialization. It helps foster a positive research-industry-market cycle and signals that the global innovation landscape is shifting toward market orientation driven by technological and industrial innovation. This move also pushes countries to shift from competing on the quantity of innovation to competing on quality, accelerating the transformation of new technologies into productivity. From a global perspective, it underscores the importance of building innovation-friendly capital markets and advancing modernization of industrial systems driven by technological innovation.

　　Q2: China has 24 clusters on this year's top 100 list. However, we also note that Chinese clusters still lag behind leading clusters in Europe and the U.S. in terms of VC deal activity. How should Chinese clusters make use of the opportunities and challenges brought by VC investment?

　　Yin: The VC deal metric aligns with China's national strategy of deepening reforms and promoting the integration of scientific and industrial innovation. It offers Chinese innovation clusters an opportunity to leapfrog ahead in global competition. Taking the Shenzhen-Hong Kong-Guangzhou cluster as an example, it overtook Tokyo-Yokohama for the first time to claim the top spot with the help of this metric. This demonstrates international recognition of the cluster's strength in　technology transfer and commercialization. However, Chinese clusters as a whole still lag behind leading Western clusters in VC deals. Structurally, although China's VC market is the world's second largest, its distribution is uneven: over 70% of VC resources are concentrated in top-tier cities like Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen, while financing channels in central and western regions remain underdeveloped.

　　Looking ahead, China needs to leverage its advantages in abundant application contexts, robust consumer demand, and complete industrial supply chain as a massive market, transitioning from the world's "innovation factory" to a global "innovation market." On one hand, Chinese innovation clusters should strengthen their global influences, showcasing research strength and commercialization potential to attract more international VC. On the other hand, they should accelerate the development of an enterprise-led, market-oriented technology transfer system driven by practical application contexts. This includes supporting enterprise-led innovation consortia and advanced innovation platforms, as well as deepening industry-university-research collaboration, enabling new technologies to move more rapidly from the laboratory to the market.

　　In addition, China's relatively underdeveloped M&A market limits the liquidity of VC investments. The government should further improve mechanisms that encourage early-stage, small-scale, frontier, and long-term VC investment. Expanding exit channels for unlisted enterprises would also help refine the VC exit system. Institutional innovation should guide capital toward high-potential technology sectors, with state-owned capital and government-backed funds playing a key role in filling market gaps, catalyzing private investment, and supporting commercialization and emerging industries. Also, China should continue to attract and nurture global innovation talent, while further strengthening intellectual property protection to lower infringement risks, boost investor confidence, and secure expected returns.

　　Shenzhen-Hong Kong-Guangzhou cluster claims top spot

　　GII ranking of world's top 10 innovation clusters by size, 2025

　　Asian, European, and American economies stand out in key metrics

　　The GII Cluster ranking identifies local concentrations of world-class innovation activity using three key metrics: international patent filings via WIPO's Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT), scientific publications, and the number of VC deals.

　　Data source: WIPO

　　Please scan the QR code to read the Chinese version.