12 Years of the World's Top 10 Most Innovative Countries
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12 Years of the World’s Top 10 Most Innovative Countries

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2 years ago

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Tracking the top 10 most innovative countries since 2011

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		201120122013201420152016201720182019202020212022
Switzerland111111111111
Sweden222332232223
Singapore338776758887
Hong Kong48710n/an/an/an/an/an/an/an/a
Finland546465876779
Denmark67981086876910
U.S.7105654463332
Canada8n/an/an/an/an/an/an/an/an/an/an/a
Netherlands964549324565
UK1053223545444
Irelandn/a910n/a871010n/an/an/an/a
Luxembourgn/an/an/a99n/an/an/an/an/an/an/a
Germanyn/an/an/an/an/a109999108
Israeln/an/an/an/an/an/an/an/a10n/an/an/a
South Korean/an/an/an/an/an/an/an/an/a1056

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.

To learn more about the 2022 innovation rankings and how countries around the world ranked, check out The Most Innovative Countries in the World 2022.
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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.

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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.

Published

5 days ago

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June 9, 2025

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This infographic compares 24 leading AI models by their performance on the Mensa Norway IQ test, highlighting the world's smartest AI models.

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 NameMensa Norway IQ Test Score
OpenAI o3135
Claude-4 Sonnet127
Gemini 2.0 Flash Thinking Exp.126
Gemini 2.5 Pro Exp.124
OpenAI o4 mini122
Claude-4 Opus120
Grok-3 Think112
DeepSeek R1106
Llama 4 Maverick105
OpenAI o1 Pro102
DeepSeek V3100
GPT4.5 Preview99
Grok-397
Gemini 2.5 Pro Exp. (Vision)96
GPT-4o93
OpenAI o4 mini high92
Claude-3.7 (Vision)91
Bing Copilot86
Mistral85
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.

Learn More on the Voronoi App

See what humans are using AI for in 2025, in this infographic on the Voronoi app.

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