Technology
12 Years of the World’s Top 10 Most Innovative Countries
12 Years of the World’s Top 10 Most Innovative Countries
Every year, the UN’s World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) scores countries on how innovative their economies are with the Global Innovation Index.
The Index scores countries on indicators of a strong innovation economy. These include R&D spend, general market strength, patent systems and output, and local labor capital. And though a few countries consistently rank high, others are moving in and out of the top 10 rankings.
This graphic from Gilbert Fontana details the top 10 most innovative countries in the UN’s WIPO Global Innovation Index from 2011-2022.
Top 10 Innovative Countries (2011–2022)
Over the last 12 years, Switzerland has ranked at the top of the innovation index on the strength of its IP laws and local economic strength.
But much of the remaining top 10 have been in flux:
Most Innovative Country Rank by Year | 2011 | 2012 | 2013 | 2014 | 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Switzerland | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
Sweden | 2 | 2 | 2 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 2 | 3 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 3 |
Singapore | 3 | 3 | 8 | 7 | 7 | 6 | 7 | 5 | 8 | 8 | 8 | 7 |
Hong Kong | 4 | 8 | 7 | 10 | n/a | n/a | n/a | n/a | n/a | n/a | n/a | n/a |
Finland | 5 | 4 | 6 | 4 | 6 | 5 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 7 | 7 | 9 |
Denmark | 6 | 7 | 9 | 8 | 10 | 8 | 6 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 9 | 10 |
U.S. | 7 | 10 | 5 | 6 | 5 | 4 | 4 | 6 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 2 |
Canada | 8 | n/a | n/a | n/a | n/a | n/a | n/a | n/a | n/a | n/a | n/a | n/a |
Netherlands | 9 | 6 | 4 | 5 | 4 | 9 | 3 | 2 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 5 |
UK | 10 | 5 | 3 | 2 | 2 | 3 | 5 | 4 | 5 | 4 | 4 | 4 |
Ireland | n/a | 9 | 10 | n/a | 8 | 7 | 10 | 10 | n/a | n/a | n/a | n/a |
Luxembourg | n/a | n/a | n/a | 9 | 9 | n/a | n/a | n/a | n/a | n/a | n/a | n/a |
Germany | n/a | n/a | n/a | n/a | n/a | 10 | 9 | 9 | 9 | 9 | 10 | 8 |
Israel | n/a | n/a | n/a | n/a | n/a | n/a | n/a | n/a | 10 | n/a | n/a | n/a |
South Korea | n/a | n/a | n/a | n/a | n/a | n/a | n/a | n/a | n/a | 10 | 5 | 6 |
In addition to Switzerland, seven other countries have been in the top 10 in each year, including Sweden, Singapore, and the United States.
Others have dropped out of the top 10, such as Canada in 2012 and Ireland in 2018. But that let up-and-comers like South Korea and Germany grab one of the top 10 spots. In total, 14 countries have ranked in the top 10 most innovative countries in the world over the time period covered in the visualization.

This article was published as a part of Visual Capitalist's Creator Program, which features data-driven visuals from some of our favorite Creators around the world.
Technology
Ranked: The Smartest AI Models, by IQ
Some of the smartest AI models are already surpassing human intelligence, with one model falling in the “genius” category of IQ.

Ranked: The Smartest AI Models, by IQ
This was originally posted on our Voronoi app. Download the app for free on iOS or Android and discover incredible data-driven charts from a variety of trusted sources.
Mirror mirror on the wall, who’s the smartest AI of them all?
Artificial intelligence is designed to be intelligent. But how do today’s leading AI models stack up in human IQ terms, and which ones are the smartest?
This infographic ranks the smartest AI models based on their performance on the Mensa Norway IQ test, with data compiled by Tracking AI. The Mensa test is a widely recognized and highly difficult IQ exam used to evaluate human intelligence.
For context, the average human IQ score ranges from 90 to 110, while a score above 130 is typically considered genius-level.
AI with Genius-Level IQ
Topping the chart is OpenAI’s text-only o3 model, scoring a 135 on the Mensa IQ test, which puts it in the “genius” category. As a part of ChatGPT, it’s also among the world’s most popular AI tools.
Model Name | Mensa Norway IQ Test Score |
---|---|
OpenAI o3 | 135 |
Claude-4 Sonnet | 127 |
Gemini 2.0 Flash Thinking Exp. | 126 |
Gemini 2.5 Pro Exp. | 124 |
OpenAI o4 mini | 122 |
Claude-4 Opus | 120 |
Grok-3 Think | 112 |
DeepSeek R1 | 106 |
Llama 4 Maverick | 105 |
OpenAI o1 Pro | 102 |
DeepSeek V3 | 100 |
GPT4.5 Preview | 99 |
Grok-3 | 97 |
Gemini 2.5 Pro Exp. (Vision) | 96 |
GPT-4o | 93 |
OpenAI o4 mini high | 92 |
Claude-3.7 (Vision) | 91 |
Bing Copilot | 86 |
Mistral | 85 |
OpenAI o1 Pro (Vision) | 83 |
OpenAI o3 (Vision) | 72 |
Llama-3.2 (Vision) | 70 |
GPT-4o (Vision) | 63 |
Grok-3 Think (Vision) | 60 |
Anthropic’s Claude-4 Sonnet and Google’s Gemini 2.0 Flash Thinking follow closely with IQ scores of 127 and 126, respectively. Furthermore, new iterations like the Gemini 2.5 Pro and OpenAI o4 mini both scored over 120, above the average human IQ range.
Overall, these high scores prove that leading AI models are now operating at high levels of intelligence, with some even surpassing the smartest human minds.
However, what’s more surprising is that all of the top 10 smartest AI models are text-only models that cannot read or process images.
The IQ Contrast Between Text and Vision AI Models
Based on IQ scores, it seems like reasoning through words is still a much stronger suit for AI than interpreting and solving visual images and puzzles.
The bottom five AI models by IQ scores are all multimodal models with the ability to read and process images. In particular, OpenAI’s GPT-4o (Vision) and xAI’s Grok-3 Think (Vision) landed far below the human average, scoring 63 and 60 on the test, respectively.
Still, the results are telling: AI isn’t just mirroring human intelligence, it’s even outscoring us in certain areas of cognition and reasoning.
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See what humans are using AI for in 2025, in this infographic on the Voronoi app.
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