Global Innovation Index 2023 reveals the top 50 Science and Technology Hubs. The United States leads global research and development spending, followed by China, Japan, Germany, and South Korea.

Another wave of science and technology (S&T) innovation swept the globe in 2023, with the launch of the first OTC birth control pill in the United States and the astounding rise of ChatGPT and artificial intelligence.

In a recent report on FOBO, the World Economic Forum recently admitted that 44% of human skills will be replaced by AI in five years.

Based on information from the Global Innovation Index 2023, Niccolo Conte of Visual Capitalist created this map that examines the top 50 science and technology hotspots in the globe driving these inventions. The combined share of international patent applications and scientific publications was used to rank the hubs.

East Asia Dominance in S&T

East Asia is home to the five most important science and technology hubs in the world.

Between 2018 and 2022, slightly more than 10% of all patent applications came from the top-ranked Tokyo-Yokohama cluster.

Cluster	Country/Economy	Patent Applications	Scientific Publications
Tokyo-Yokohama	🇯🇵 Japan	127,418	115,020
Shenzhen-Hong Kong-Guangzhou	🇨🇳/🇭🇰 China/Hong Kong	113,482	153,180
Seoul	🇰🇷 South Korea	63,447	133,604
Beijing	🇨🇳 China	38,067	279,485
Shanghai-Suzhou	🇨🇳 China	32,924	162,635
San Jose-San Francisco	🇺🇸 U.S.	47,269	58,575
Osaka-Kobe-Kyoto	🇯🇵 Japan	38,413	51,948
Boston-Cambridge	🇺🇸 U.S.	18,184	76,378
San Diego	🇺🇸 U.S.	23,261	20,928
New York City	🇺🇸 U.S.	13,838	74,849
Nanjing	🇨🇳 China	7,143	113,488
Paris	🇫🇷 France	15,176	61,692
Wuhan	🇨🇳 China	6,250	89,756
Hangzhou	🇨🇳 China	10,755	62,924
Nagoya	🇯🇵 Japan	17,736	16,091
Los Angeles,	🇺🇸 U.S.	11,556	44,058
Washington, DC–Baltimore	🇺🇸 U.S.	5,525	76,039
Daejeon	🇰🇷 South Korea	12,275	25,552
Xi’an	🇨🇳 China	1,786	86,937
London	🇬🇧 Great Britain	5,981	59,068
Seattle	🇺🇸 U.S.	11,472	20,322
Munich	🇩🇪 Germany	10,248	24,239
Qingdao	🇨🇳 China	7,286	39,745
Chengdu	🇨🇳 China	2,046	67,334
Cologne	🇩🇪 Germany	7,466	34,286
Amsterdam–Rotterdam	🇳🇱 Netherlands	4,230	52,864
Taipei–Hsinchu	🇹🇼 Taiwan	3,907	52,752
Houston	🇺🇸 U.S.	8,475	24,636
Stuttgart	🇩🇪 Germany	9,342	14,874
Tel Aviv–Jerusalem	🇮🇱 Israel	7,268	24,219
Moscow	🇷🇺 Russia	2,036	55,086
Chicago	🇺🇸 U.S.	5,763	32,343
Singapore	🇸🇬/🇲🇾 Singapore/Malaysia	4,861	36,803
Tehran	🇮🇷 Iran	249	63,113
Philadelphia	🇺🇸 U.S.	5,390	32,309
Tianjin	🇨🇳 China	1,267	53,680
Changsha	🇨🇳 China	1,149	52,768
Stockholm	🇸🇪 Sweden	6,069	19,984
Minneapolis	🇺🇸 U.S.	6,625	15,375
Hefei	🇨🇳 China	2,549	38,974
Eindhoven	🇳🇱 Netherlands	7,982	5,339
Melbourne	🇦🇺 Australia	2,126	40,056
Berlin	🇩🇪 Germany	3,624	30,464
Chongqing	🇨🇳 China	1,651	41,412
Frankfurt am Main	🇩🇪 Germany	5,410	18,590
Sydney	🇦🇺 Australia	2,539	33,695
Raleigh	🇺🇸 U.S.	3,057	30,206
Madrid	🇪🇸 Spain	1,580	38,849
Zürich	🇨🇭 Switzerland	3,759	24,437
Milan	🇮🇹 Italy	2,578	31,077

The San Francisco Bay Area, the first American cluster on the list, is the location of significant tech firms like Adobe, eBay, Google, and PayPal.

The San Francisco Bay Area is one of the most S&T-intensive clusters in terms of total population density, along with Cambridge in the United Kingdom.

With 24 clusters overall, China led the list of nations with the most clusters among the top 100 for the first time. Next, with 21 clusters, is the United States, followed by Germany with nine.

Furthermore, almost all Chinese clusters improved from the previous year’s ranks; Beijing was the only one to drop.

The only middle-income economic clusters outside of China are São Paulo, Brazil; Bengaluru, Delhi, Chennai, and Mumbai, India; Tehran, Islamic Republic of Iran; Istanbul and Ankara, Turkey; and Moscow, Russian Federation.

The United States leads the world in research and development (R&D) spending, followed by China, Japan, Germany, and the Republic of Korea, according to the Global Innovation Index.