Tokyo-Yokohama: World’s Second Most Innovative Cluster in 2025
The Tokyo-Yokohama cluster beat San Jose-San Francisco to rank second behind Shenzhen-Hong Kong-Guangzhou in the 18th Global Innovation Index (GII), which measures innovation performance of 140 economies and reveals the top 100 innovation clusters. Just outside the top ten is Osaka–Kobe–Kyoto and Nagoya at 28th, while Japan ranked 12th in the GII’s 100 Most Innovative Economies, just below Germany and China.
Since its launch in 2007, the GII has become the leading global benchmark for measuring and comparing innovation performance. It is recognized by the UN General Assembly as an authoritative reference for Science, Technology and Innovation policies.
By tracking trends through investment patterns, technological progress, adoption rates and socioeconomic impacts, it provides a useful resource for government, industry, researchers and anyone with a stake in developing innovation.
The Tokyo-Yokohama cluster produces the highest percentage of international patent filings, accounting for more than 10% of the world’s total. Published annually by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), GII’s top 20 Innovation Clusters are:
- Shenzhen–Hong Kong–Guangzhou
- Tokyo–Yokohama
- San Jose–San Francisco
- Beijing
- Seoul
- Shanghai–Suzhou
- New York City
- London
- Boston–Cambridge
- Los Angeles
- Osaka–Kobe–Kyoto
- Paris, France
- Hangzhou
- San Diego
- Nanjing
- Singapore-Malaysia
- Washington–Baltimore
- Wuhan
- Tel Aviv–Jerusalem
- Seattle
So what makes Tokyo-Yokohama so special? Train cards can be used for buses and vending machines while AI allows self-checkout and cashless pay. Some hotels offer fully automated check-in and smart beds that adjust the temperature, while an increasing number of restaurants employ robot staff. Tourists marvel at the driverless train on the Yurikamome Line, while award-winning teamLab Planets Tokyo creates digital artwork and integrates advanced technologies:
However, it is behind the scenes where Japan really makes its mark with 3,707 patent applications, 3,176 scientific articles published and 141 venture capital deals.
Download the Tokyo-Yokohama Global Innovation Index 2025 PDF here
GII said, “The Top 100 clusters together account for around 70% of global patent filings and venture capital activity, underlining their central role in shaping the future of innovation. The Innovation cluster ranking of the Global Innovation Index identifies local concentrations of innovation activity. Innovation clusters are established through the analysis of patent-filing activity, scientific article publication and venture capital activity, documenting the geographical areas around the world with the highest density of inventors, scientific authors and venture capitalists.”
WIPO locates and ranks innovation clusters through a geocoding method, mapping addresses and names pulled from documents to 98% accuracy for inventor addresses and 99.7% for both scientific author addresses and VC deals.
Ten clusters entered the top 100 for the first time:
- Miami (67)
- Dublin (71)
- Phoenix (78)
- Mexico City (79)
- Oslo (85)
- Hamburg (91)
- Salt Lake City (92)
- Ningbo (93)
- Manchester (94)
- Ningde (99)
Most Innovative Economies
Meanwhile, Japan moved up one place to 12th after four years at 13th among world economies’ innovation capabilities. Consisting of about 80 indicators, grouped into innovation inputs and outputs, the GII aims to capture the multi-dimensional facets of innovation.
Japan ranked highest in Business sophistication (sixth), Market sophistication (10th) and Knowledge and technology outputs (12th), while scoring lowest in Institutions (22nd), Human capital and research, Creative outputs (18th) and Infrastructure (17th). Eight indicators have improved in the short-term and three have worsened.
- Switzerland
- Sweden
- US
- South Korea
- Singapore
- UK
- Finland
- Netherlands
- Denmark
- China
- Germany
- Japan