Xi'an ranks 23rd in the 2026 global innovation cluster ranking

On September 8, the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) released its 2026 ranking of the world's top 100 innovation clusters. China has retained the largest number of clusters on the list for the fourth consecutive year.

Xi'an Cluster rose to 23rd globally from 29th in 2025, ranking 8th in China.

A total of 25 Chinese clusters made it to the top 100 list, one more than last year. The United States ranks second with 20 clusters. It is followed by Germany (7), the United Kingdom (4), India (4), Japan (3), the Republic of Korea (3) and Canada (3). 

The world's top 15 innovation clusters are Shenzhen–Hong Kong–Guangzhou, Tokyo–Yokohama, San Jose–San Francisco, Seoul, Beijing, Shanghai–Suzhou, New York, London, Boston–Cambridge, Paris, Osaka–Kobe–Kyoto, Los Angeles, Hangzhou, San Diego and Nanjing.

Among China's 25 listed clusters, 18 have climbed in the rankings, accounting for 72 percent of the total.

The Ranking of the World's Top 100 Innovation Clusters is published each year as part of WIPO's Global Innovation Index (GII), now in its 19th edition. While the GII ranks the innovation performance of nearly 140 economies, the cluster ranking looks below the national level. Using a bottom-up method that looks beyond administrative and political borders, it identifies the geographic areas with the world's highest density of inventors, scientific authors and/or venture capital activity.

Three metrics determine the top 100: the locations of inventors listed in patent applications filed under the WIPO Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT), the affiliations of authors of published scientific articles, and the locations of companies receiving venture capital funding.