Shenzhen-Hong Kong-Guangzhou retains crown as world’s top innovation hub

A cluster comprising Hong Kong and two mainland Chinese cities has been ranked the world’s top innovation hub for the second consecutive year by a United Nations body.

The Shenzhen-Hong Kong-Guangzhou cluster retained its crown in the 2026 Global Innovation Index (GII) released by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) on Tuesday.

Tokyo-Yokohama, San Jose-San Francisco, Seoul and Beijing followed in the rankings.

A government spokesman welcomed WIPO’s ranking, saying it reaffirmed the Greater Bay Area’s “outstanding innovative capacity” and its strong financing ecosystem for innovation and technology.

He said the city would “proactively align with the national 15th five-year plan to strengthen its strategic positioning” as an international innovation and technology (I&T) centre.

The government would also deepen collaboration across the bay area – which refers to Beijing’s initiative to integrate Hong Kong and Macau with nine mainland Chinese cities into a hi-tech economic powerhouse – to help build a modern industrial system and support national technological self-reliance, he said.

The GII ranking identifies local concentrations of world-class innovation activity using three key metrics: international patent filings via WIPO, scientific publications, and venture capital deals.