Technology

Visualizing the R&D Investment of the 10 Biggest Nasdaq Companies

Published

2 years ago

October 10, 2023

Trendline

Featured Creator

Article/Editing:

Dorothy Neufeld

The 10 Biggest Nasdaq Companies, by R&D Investment

R&D Investment of the 10 Biggest Nasdaq Companies

Over the last decade, Apple’s research and development (R&D) spending has jumped from about $3 billion to over $26 billion.

The world’s largest company, like other tech giants, is investing heavily in R&D on the heels of AI disruption and the rapid speed of innovation. As these technologies become more pervasive in our daily lives, so too has investment in R&D across major companies.

This graphic from Trendline shows the scale at which the 10 biggest companies listed on the Nasdaq are spending on R&D.

R&D Investment by the 10 Biggest Nasdaq Firms

In 2022, the 10 largest Nasdaq companies by market cap spent roughly $222 billion on R&D—a figure that has risen considerably in recent years.

Rank	Name	R&D % of Revenue	R&D Spend in 2022* (Billions)
1	Amazon	14%	$73.2
2	Alphabet	14%	$39.5
3	Meta	30%	$35.3
4	Apple	7%	$27.7
5	Microsoft	13%	$26.6
6	Nvidia	27%	$7.3
7	Broadcom	14%	$4.9
8	ASML	15%	$3.3
9	Tesla	4%	$3.1
10	PepsiCo	1%	$0.8

*Trailing 12 months, ending December 31, 2022. Nvidia and Broadcom data is as of January 29, 2023.

Amazon invested over $73 billion in R&D last year, more than double the levels seen at Meta or Apple. R&D spending increased 30% over the year for the retail heavyweight, as it invested in technology infrastructure that underlies everything from software to autonomous vehicles.

Facebook parent Meta spent almost a third of its annual revenues on R&D in 2022, the highest proportion across the 10 largest Nasdaq companies. The majority of these investments were through its research arm, Reality Labs, which is focused on building a metaverse. However, the company has since pivoted away from its work on the metaverse due to a lackluster response—instead focusing on generative AI.

Chipmaker Nvidia, which has seen its market capitalization skyrocket in 2023, spent over $7 billion on R&D across generative AI, deep learning, robotics, and a number of other research areas. Between 2021 and 2022, investments in R&D grew by 34%.

Fastest Rising R&D Spenders, Globally

Beyond big tech names in the Nasdaq, many companies are accelerating their investment in R&D as the complexity of technology increases.

The table below shows the top 10 companies globally with the highest increase in R&D spend, based on analysis by fDi Intelligence.

Rank	Name	Country	R&D Spending % Change 2021-2022
1	BYD	🇨🇳 China	+133%
2	AMD	🇺🇸 U.S.	+76%
3	Moderna	🇺🇸 U.S.	+65%
4	Meta	🇺🇸 U.S.	+43%
5	Nvidia	🇺🇸 U.S.	+39%
6	Uber	🇺🇸 U.S.	+36%
7	Novo Nordisk	🇩🇰 Denmark	+35%
8	Vertex Pharmaceuticals	🇺🇸 U.S.	+31%
9	TSMC	🇨🇳 Taiwan	+31%
10	Amazon	🇺🇸 U.S.	+31%

China’s largest electric vehicle maker, BYD, increased R&D investment by 133%, the most across companies analyzed. Among its primary research areas is the “Blade Battery”, which is a prismatic battery designed to hold as much as 50% more energy than comparable models.

Two chipmakers, AMD and TSMC also made the list, while three healthcare companies Moderna, Novo Nordisk, and Vertex Pharmaceuticals made significant R&D investments.

The Future of Innovation Spending

Even as many big tech names saw their stock prices fall in 2022, many dramatically increased their R&D investment.

This came as tech firms laid off thousands of employees. Together, Amazon, Microsoft, and Google’s parent company Alphabet laid of 40,000 employees as of early 2023.

Despite challenging environments, the focus on R&D is evident. Large companies can apply innovation across numerous areas of their business, improve efficiencies, with the goal of making the most out of research dollars spent.

At the same time, the complexity of technology is accelerating, requiring companies to spend more to keep with the pace of innovation. This involves investment in engineers, research facilities, along with the cost of running more advanced technological infrastructure.

Between 2000 and 2020, global R&D spending increased more than threefold to $2.4 trillion, a trend that shows minimal signs of slowing.

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.

Related Topics:innovation amazon ai byd nvidia Meta partner r&d spend nasdaq companies

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Mapped: The Biggest Tech Talent Hubs in the World

In 2023, all eight markets with 500,000 or more tech talent workers were located in Asia, specifically in India, China, and Japan.

Published

17 hours ago

June 16, 2025

Kayla Zhu

A map showing the top tech talent hubs in the world in 2023

Top Global Tech Talent Hubs

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.

The global tech talent landscape is becoming increasingly decentralized as fast-growing hubs across Asia, Europe, and beyond rival traditional strongholds like Silicon Valley in size.

This map shows the top global tech talent hubs in the world by number of tech workers as of the year 2023.

Data comes from CBRE Consulting’s Global Tech Talent Guidebook 2025.

Powerhouse markets are defined as major urban centers with large tech talent pools, mature tech ecosystems, stable regulatory environments, access to capital, and the ability to attract tech entrepreneurs and talent from around the world.

Which Cities Have the Most Tech Workers?

Below, we show the top global tech talent hubs by number of tech talent workers.

Market	Country	Region	Tech Talent Workforce
Beijing	🇨🇳 Mainland China	Asia-Pacific	500,000+
Bengaluru	🇮🇳 India	Asia-Pacific	500,000+
Shanghai	🇨🇳 Mainland China	Asia-Pacific	500,000+
Tokyo	🇯🇵 Japan	Asia-Pacific	500,000+
Delhi-Gurugram	🇮🇳 India	Asia-Pacific	500,000+
Hyderabad	🇮🇳 India	Asia-Pacific	500,000+
Mumbai	🇮🇳 India	Asia-Pacific	500,000+
Shenzhen	🇨🇳 Mainland China	Asia-Pacific	500,000+
Guangzhou	🇨🇳 Mainland China	Asia-Pacific	300,000-500,000
London	🇬🇧 U.K.	Europe	300,000-500,000
New York Metro	🇺🇸 U.S.	North America	300,000-500,000
Paris	🇫🇷 France	Europe	300,000-500,000
S.F. Bay Area	🇺🇸 U.S.	North America	300,000-500,000
Toronto	🇨🇦 Canada	North America	300,000-500,000
Singapore	🇸🇬 Singapore	Asia-Pacific	200,000-300,000
Dallas-Ft. Worth	🇺🇸 U.S.	North America	200,000-300,000
L.A.-Orange County	🇺🇸 U.S.	North America	200,000-300,000
Madrid	🇪🇸 Spain	Europe	200,000-300,000
Manila	🇵🇭 Philippines	Asia-Pacific	200,000-300,000
Mexico City	🇲🇽 Mexico	Latin America	200,000-300,000
Sao Paulo	🇧🇷 Brazil	Latin America	200,000-300,000
Sydney	🇦🇺 Australia	Asia-Pacific	200,000-300,000
Washington, D.C.	🇺🇸 U.S.	North America	200,000-300,000
Boston	🇺🇸 U.S.	North America	150,000-200,000
Seattle	🇺🇸 U.S.	North America	150,000-200,000
Chicago	🇺🇸 U.S.	North America	150,000-200,000
Melbourne	🇦🇺 Australia	Asia-Pacific	150,000-200,000
Montreal	🇨🇦 Canada	North America	150,000-200,000
Santiago	🇨🇱 Chile	Latin America	150,000-200,000
Seoul	🇰🇷 South Korea	Asia-Pacific	150,000-200,000
New Taipei City	🇹🇼 Taiwan	Asia-Pacific	150,000-200,000
Amsterdam	🇳🇱 Netherlands	Europe	100,000-150,000
Atlanta	🇺🇸 U.S.	North America	100,000-150,000
Barcelona	🇪🇸 Spain	Europe	100,000-150,000
Berlin	🇩🇪 Germany	Europe	100,000-150,000
Bogota	🇨🇴 Colombia	Latin America	100,000-150,000
Bucharest	🇷🇴 Romania	Europe	100,000-150,000
Buenos Aires	🇦🇷 Argentina	Latin America	100,000-150,000
Denver	🇺🇸 U.S.	North America	100,000-150,000
Dublin	🇮🇪 Ireland	Europe	100,000-150,000
Hong Kong	🇭🇰 Hong Kong	Asia-Pacific	100,000-150,000
Milan	🇮🇹 Italy	Europe	100,000-150,000
Munich	🇩🇪 Germany	Europe	100,000-150,000
Philadelphia	🇺🇸 U.S.	North America	100,000-150,000
Phoenix	🇺🇸 U.S.	North America	100,000-150,000
Stockholm	🇸🇪 Sweden	Europe	100,000-150,000
Vancouver	🇨🇦 Canada	North America	100,000-150,000
Warsaw	🇵🇱 Poland	Europe	100,000-150,000

The Asia-Pacific region is challenging the United States’ long-standing dominance in tech talent.

In 2023, all eight markets with 500,000 or more tech talent workers were located in Asia, specifically in India, China, and Japan.

The biggest Asian tech talent hubs are home to some of the world’s most influential tech companies, including the world’s most valuable unicorn ByteDance (Beijing), Infosys (Bengaluru), Alibaba (Shanghai), Sony (Tokyo), and Tencent (Shenzhen)–one of the most valuable companies in the world.

The San Francisco Bay Area, home to Silicon Valley, was among the top powerhouse markets from this year’s report and the largest tech talent hub in North America.

Powerhouse markets were mostly found in Asia and North America, with Paris, France being the only European powerhouse market. Paris is home to multinational IT consulting company Capgemini and an up-and-coming generative AI startup, Mistral AI.

Across all regions, demand for skilled workers in AI, software development and data engineering is driving growth in both established and emerging markets.

The Asia-Pacific region had the most tech talent hubs overall at 16, followed by North America at 15.

Learn More on the Voronoi App

To learn about significant hubs for research and innoation, check out this graphic that visualizes the world’s top 50 science and technology (S&T) clusters in 2024.