Pakistan 'overperformer' in innovation, climbs 4 ranks globally: report

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan rose to 95th place among the 139 economies of the world featured in the ‘Global Innovation Index 2026’ published by the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) on Thursday.

Advancing in rank from 99th place in 2025, Pakistan also reclaimed its “overperformer” status for the fourth time, a status given to economies identified as performing above expectations for their level of economic development. It also held the status in 2022 and 2024.

The global index report showed that Pakistan performed better in innovation outputs than innovation inputs in 2026. This year, Pakistan ranked 121st in innovation inputs and 72nd in innovation outputs — both higher than last year.

“Innovation overperformance shows that innovation does not follow a straight line from income to results,” the report said.

“The 2026 overperformers show that economies can generate more innovation than expected for their level of development when they build on focused strengths.”

WIPO highlighted that Pakistan’s strengths were concentrated in the digital economy, particularly mobile app creation, ICT services exports, high-tech imports, and software spending. It added that the country’s “relatively strong” scientific production and university quality supported a developing digital economy.

In the 2026 index, Pakistan ranked 15th among the 36 lower-income group economies and eighth among the 11 economies in Central and Southern Asia. It did not rank among the top innovation clusters in any specific innovation pillar of the index (including ‘human capital and research’, ‘infrastructure’, etc).

Pakistan’s GII ranking (2020-2026) showed a rise over the past seven years, ranking 107th in 2020; 99th in 2021; 87th in 2022; 88th in 2023; 91st in 2024; and 99th in 2025.

Meanwhile, Switzerland, Sweden and the United States remained the world’s top three innovation economies, with Switzerland ranking first for a 16th consecutive year. The organisation noted, “In a period of major geopolitical and economic turbulence, the most striking feature about the top of the ranking is its stability.”

According to the report, the leading economies broadly remain the same as in 2025, with no new economy in the top 15 since last year, and Europe once more accounting for the largest share of the group with 14 economies out of 25 innovation leaders. Additionally, the Netherlands moved up to seventh place and Austria to 18th.

“The main signal at the innovation frontier this year is continuity, rather than the emergence of any single new entrant,” the report said.

Five Asian economies were also among the top 25: South Korea and Singapore in fourth and fifth place respectively; China remaining 10th — as the only middle-income economy among the innovation leaders — Japan at 12th and Hong Kong, China in 14th place.

The report highlighted that the presence of Asian economies was now an “established feature of the top ranks, rather than a development unique to this year”.

According to the report, the GII 2026 Innovation Tracker pointed to “continued but slower progress across the innovation cycle”. Most indicators advanced, with notable gains in scientific output, corporate research and development (R&D), battery costs and technology adoption; however, about three-quarters remained below the decade average.

Research effort nonetheless remained at a historic high, it pointed out, with global R&D intensity close to two per cent of GDP.

The WIPO report identified that the near-term environment was more demanding than the previous year: “Global growth of about 3.4pc in 2025 is expected to ease to around 3pc in 2026, held back by higher energy prices and elevated uncertainty, before recovering modestly in 2027.”

It highlighted that AI-related investment remained “the main engine on the upside”, with the largest hyper-scalers set to spend over $1 trillion on AI infrastructure across 2025 and 2026.

“This will be increasingly financed through debt and private credit, meaning a downward revision of expected AI returns could tighten financing conditions well beyond the sector,” it added.

The report noted that emerging economies, including Pakistan, could build on their standout strengths to improve their overall innovation performance.

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