In 2025, companies announced close to 6,000 greenfield R&D and high-tech investment projects outside their home economies: 1,201 R&D projects and 4,769 high-tech projects. That is about one in three of the roughly 16,500 greenfield projects of all kinds announced worldwide that year. They include new research labs, design and testing centers, semiconductor and pharmaceutical plants, and software and IT service operations, as well as expansions of existing ones. In this post, the term "projects" refers to these R&D and high-tech projects only.
These projects go to a small number of places. The top 10 destination economies received 58 percent of them, led by the United States, India and the United Arab Emirates. Sources are even more concentrated: the top 10 source economies announced around 70 percent of all projects. Firms based in the United States alone account for one in every four outbound projects worldwide, followed by firms from Germany and the United Kingdom.
Absolute counts favor large economies. The new GII indicator, Greenfield R&D & High-tech FDI (5.3.5), adjusts for this by using a revealed comparative advantage (RCA) measure: an economy’s share of world R&D and high-tech FDI project announcements divided by its share of world gross fixed capital formation (GFCF). On this basis, the picture changes: small open economies lead. Costa Rica, Luxembourg and the United Arab Emirates share first place, and Tunisia, in 18th place, is the only lower middle-income economy in the top 20.
Four groups of economies: hubs, magnets, outward leaders and nascent investors
Figure 1 plots each economy’s inbound R&D and high-tech project announcements in 2025 against its outbound ones; bubble size reflects total announced capital investment. Sixteen economies lie above the world average on both axes: these are the global investment hubs in the top-right quadrant. Fourteen of them are high-income economies; China and India are the exceptions. Seven hubs are European, five are in South East Asia, East Asia and Oceania (Australia, China, Japan, the Republic of Korea and Singapore), the United States and Canada represent Northern America, India represents Central and Southern Asia, and the United Arab Emirates completes the group. Figure 2 summarizes how the four groups differ.
Figure 1: Greenfield R&D and high-tech FDI projects: inflows versus outflows, 2025
Note: Bubble size is proportional to total announced capital investment (USD billion). Both axes are on a logarithmic scale. Dashed lines mark the average number of inbound and outbound project announcements across the 139 GII economies. Economies above both means are global investment hubs; those above the mean on inflows only are investment magnets; on outflows only, outward investment leaders; below both, nascent investors.
Source: WIPO, Global Innovation Index 2026, based on FT Locations, fDi Markets.
Figure 2: Four groups of economies by inbound and outbound R&D and high-tech project announcements, 2025
Note: Group counts refer to the 139 GII economies. The world average is the mean number of inbound or outbound announcements across these economies.
Source: WIPO, Global Innovation Index 2026, based on FT Locations, fDi Markets.
Investment magnets: mostly middle-income economies that receive far more FDI than they send
The bottom-right quadrant hosts the 14 investment magnets: economies above the world average on inbound R&D and high-tech FDI projects but not on outbound ones. Ten of these are middle-income economies, and this group is the most geographically dispersed: five economies in South East Asia (Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand and Viet Nam), three in Latin America (Brazil, Colombia and Mexico), three in Northern Africa and Western Asia (Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Türkiye), Poland and Portugal in Europe, and South Africa, the only sub-Saharan African economy above the world average on either axis.
For these magnets, investment flows mostly one way. In 2025, Indonesia received 59 projects[SWV5], compared with a single outbound announcement; the Philippines received 43, compared with three. Mexico is the strongest magnet, attracting 188 projects in 2025, compared with only six outbound announcements. Saudi Arabia (149 compared with 19) and Poland (119 compared with 19) follow as the quadrant’s next largest recipients. Brazil (111 compared with 36) and Türkiye (88 compared with 32) announce roughly one project abroad for every three they receive, which puts them closest among the magnets to hub status. Figure 3 presents the inbound and outbound annual averages for 2023–2025, rather than the 2025 counts discussed here.
Figure 3: Inbound versus outbound R&D and high-tech project announcements, investment magnets, annual average, 2023–2025
Source: WIPO, Global Innovation Index 2026, based on FT Locations, fDi Markets.
Outward investment leaders are all high-income economies
Eight economies are outward investment leaders: their firms announce far more projects abroad than these economies receive. All are high-income economies, among them Switzerland, Sweden, Denmark, Israel, and Hong Kong, China. All other economies, the nascent investors, are below the world average on both axes.
Net balance: the United Arab Emirates and Mexico are the largest net destinations; the United States is the largest net source
Netting inbound against outbound announcements gives a second view (Figure 4). The net balance—the number of inbound projects minus the number of outbound projects—expressed as an annual average over 2023–2025, divides the economies into net destinations (they receive more projects than their firms announce abroad) and net sources (their firms announce more projects abroad than these economies receive). Nineteen of the top 20 net sources are high-income economies, led by the United States, followed by Japan, Germany, China and Switzerland. Among the top 20 net destinations, by contrast, 11 are middle-income economies, including long-term GII climbers such as India, Viet Nam, Indonesia, Türkiye and the Philippines, along with Malaysia, Brazil and Thailand. The United Arab Emirates is the largest net destination, with 411 net inbound projects per year on average over 2023–2025, followed by Mexico with 182.
Figure 4: Where R&D and high-tech greenfield FDI flows in and where it flows out: top 20 net destinations and net sources, annual average, 2023–2025
Source: WIPO, Global Innovation Index 2026, based on FT Locations, fDi Markets.
Note: The net balance is the number of inbound greenfield R&D and high-tech project announcements minus the number of outbound announcements, expressed as an annual average over 2023–2025 and rounded to a whole number. For Belgium, Germany and Finland, the period considered is 2022–2024, due to incomplete 2025 data.
Relative to how much they invest, small open economies lead the new indicator
Absolute project counts favor large economies. The new GII indicator adjusts for economy size using the RCA measure introduced above, with gross fixed capital formation data from the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
On this measure, smaller open economies move to the front (Table 1). Costa Rica, Luxembourg and the United Arab Emirates share the top rank on the Greenfield R&D & High-tech FDI indicator, followed by Malta (4th), Cyprus (5th), Singapore (6th), Ireland (7th) and Estonia (8th). The United Arab Emirates is the only economy at the top of both the absolute and the specialization rankings.
European economies take 14 of the top 20 places, including all three Baltic states. Tunisia (18th) is the only lower middle-income economy in the top 20. The full rankings are available in the GII Data Explorer. The largest announcements by economy are also listed in the Data Explorer, in the “Innovation top performers” section.
Table 1: Top 20 economies in the Greenfield R&D & High-tech FDI indicator (5.3.5)
Source: WIPO, Global Innovation Index 2026, based on FT Locations, fDi Markets.
Note: Economies with the same score on the indicator share the same rank. Economies can have the same score because of outlier treatment.
Why the GII now tracks Greenfield R&D & High-techFDI
The GII has long measured foreign direct investment (FDI) with its FDI net inflows indicator (5.3.4), based on International Monetary Fund (IMF) balance-of-payments data as compiled by the World Bank. These data show how much capital crosses borders, but they say little about innovation. First, they are published with a lag of a year or more. Second, they do not distinguish between changes in ownership and expansions of production capacity. That is, the purchase of an existing office tower is registered in the same way as a new AI data center or a semiconductor research lab. Third, they blend very different flows (new investment, mergers and acquisitions, reinvested earnings and intra-company loans), and some of these flows are routed through financial centers with little real activity on the ground. Announced greenfield projects, by contrast, are recorded at the project level and in near real time, and they identify the sector and the type of activity, such as R&D, design or manufacturing. This makes it possible to track new innovation-related capacity directly rather than infer it from financial flows.
Greenfield project announcements answer a narrow question: Where do companies decide to build new research, design and high-tech production capacity? The FT Locations fDi Markets database records each project when it is announced, with its source and destination economy, sector and business activity. This makes it possible to separate an R&D center or a chip plant from a warehouse or a sales office, and to see the result within months rather than years (Figure 5).
Figure 5: R&D and high-tech projects among all greenfield FDI project announcements, 2025
Note: “All other greenfield projects” refers to the difference between the approximately 16,500 greenfield projects announced in 2025 (a rounded total) and the 5,970 R&D and high-tech projects.
Source: WIPO, Global Innovation Index 2026, based on FT Locations, fDi Markets.
For innovation, the type of investment matters. Foreign R&D centers and high-tech plants can bring skills and technology into the host economy and create links with local suppliers, universities and startups. Many governments, particularly those in middle-income economies, now target such projects in their investment promotion strategies. Outbound projects matter as well: they show which economies are home to firms that can run research and high-tech operations abroad and draw on knowledge in other markets. The indicator therefore counts both directions and sits in the GII sub-pillar on knowledge absorption (5.3).
Announcements are statements of intent. Some projects are delayed, resized or canceled, and fDi Markets estimates capital investment where companies do not disclose it. The indicator is best read as a signal of where firms plan to invest, alongside the balance-of-payments measure of what has already been invested.
Background
The Global Innovation Index includes a pillar on Business Sophistication (Pillar 5), with three sub-pillars covering knowledge workers (5.1), innovation linkages (5.2) and knowledge absorption (5.3). Sub-pillar 5.3 has long featured the FDI net inflows indicator (5.3.4), based on International Monetary Fund balance-of-payments data as compiled by the World Bank. Starting with the GII 2026, sub-pillar 5.3 also includes a new indicator, Greenfield R&D & High-tech FDI (5.3.5), developed by WIPO in partnership with FT Locations.
The indicator measures each economy's revealed comparative advantage (RCA) in greenfield foreign R&D and high-tech investment, based on project announcements recorded in FT Locations' fDi Markets database, which has tracked greenfield FDI in real time across markets and sectors since 2003. Greenfield FDI is defined as cross-border investment in a new physical project, or the expansion of an existing one, that creates new jobs and capital investment. It excludes mergers, acquisitions and other equity investments, which only change the ownership of existing assets. Because it captures new productive capacity rather than a change of ownership, greenfield investment maps onto innovation more closely than aggregate FDI flows do. A project is classified as R&D or high-tech when fDi Markets tags its business activity as R&D or as design, development and testing, or when it falls within high-tech sectors such as semiconductors, biotechnology, pharmaceuticals, and software and IT services.
The RCA score is calculated as an economy's share of world R&D and high-tech greenfield project announcements, counting both inflows and outflows, divided by its share of world gross fixed capital formation (GFCF) using data from the International Monetary Fund, averaged over 2023–2025. This normalization lets smaller, highly specialized economies be compared on equal footing with larger ones, whose absolute project counts would otherwise dominate the ranking.
For more information, refer to Appendix III: Sources and Definitions of the Global Innovation Index.