We all sense that the world is not just shrinking but also spinning faster. The telegraph was released in the 1840s and took decades to spread worldwide. In comparison, ChatGPT reached 100 million users in just a month.
The theme of technology diffusion is the focus of the World Intellectual Property Report 2026. This is important because the time and geographic lag between invention and adoption can make a big difference to the development, growth and impact of that technology on different countries as well as around the globe.
As ever, WIPO goes beyond anecdotes and stories to bring a data- and evidence-based approach to this issue. Our analysis draws on evidence spanning 250 years of technological history, as well as patent citation data over five decades, to provide detailed information on how breakthrough inventions spread.
The findings point to profound changes over the past 50 years in the speed at which technologies spread internationally. Adoption lags between invention and first use have fallen dramatically: technologies that once took decades to reach global markets now do so within years, and in some cases within days. Even more strikingly, newer technologies are no longer used only by a handful of advanced economies at scale – the gap in intensity of use has begun to close, especially in the digital domain. In addition, technological knowledge now travels across borders almost as quickly as within them, signaling a world in which ideas diffuse faster and more widely than ever before.
Nonetheless, significant challenges persist. Technological knowledge – an essential input into the diffusion process – is concentrated and retained in a small number of developed economies. Despite gains, many developing countries require faster economic growth, infrastructure investments, and institutional frameworks to speed technology adoption. At the same time, the experience of several economies, particularly in East Asia, illustrates that these barriers are not insurmountable and shows how countries can harness technology to support economic growth.
Through this report, WIPO seeks to support Member States in better understanding these dynamics and in designing policies that ensure economies benefit from technological progress. Even in a world where geography is no longer a binding constraint on knowledge flows, deliberate policy choices remain essential for translating diffusion into growth, development and actual impact.
Daren Tang
Director General
World Intellectual PropertyOrganization (WIPO)