Global R&D spending hits record high, Asia emerges as innovation leader
According to new data from the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), global investment in research and development (R&D) continued to grow in 2024, inching closer to the historic milestone of $3 trillion USD, despite an uneven economic recovery.
WIPO’s preliminary estimates indicate that global R&D expenditure reached $2.87 trillion in 2024. This represents a year-on-year increase of nearly 3% and an almost threefold increase in real terms since 2000. The global R&D intensity—the share of R&D in the world’s GDP—also hit a new high of approximately 2%, underscoring the growing science and technology focus of the global economy.
The most significant trend is the consolidation of Asia as the world’s primary hub for R&D.
The region of Southeast Asia, East Asia, and Oceania (including China, Japan, Korea, and ASEAN economies) now accounts for 42% of all global R&D spending.
Overall, Asia’s share of global expenditure has surged from 23% in 2000 to a record 45% in 2024.
Meanwhile, the relative shares of traditional leaders—North America and Europe—have contracted to 28% and 20%, respectively.
In 2024, the world’s two largest economies reached a new historic milestone, with their R&D investments nearly tied for the top spot:
China: $785.9 billion USD.
United States: $781.8 billion USD.
The gap between these two leaders and the rest of the world remains substantial and has even grown. The spending of the next-largest economies is now a fraction of China’s:
Japan (3rd place): ~$186 billion USD, or about 24% of China’s expenditure;
Germany: $132.2 billion USD (17%);
Republic of Korea: 16%;
India: ~$76 billion USD (about 10%).
Even the combined R&D spending of the 27-nation European Union in 2024 is estimated at approximately $424 billion, which is just over half of the U.S. or Chinese totals.
The list of the fastest-growing R&D spenders since 2000 is almost exclusively composed of middle-income economies, which are the primary engine behind the increase in global figures:
China: growth of nearly 20-fold (from $40.7 to $785.9 billion);
Indonesia: increase of more than 12 times (to $10.6 billion);
Türkiye: growth by a factor of 9.6 (from $4.5 to $43.2 billion);
India: increase of more than 3.6 times (from $20.8 to $75.7 billion).
A key factor in the resilience of R&D systems is the dominant role of private financing. In many leading innovation economies, businesses provide 70-90% of all R&D expenditure. The leaders in private sector share are:
Israel — 93%;
Viet Nam — 90.5%;
Ireland — 86.1%;
High levels of private investment are also characteristic of other leaders such as the Republic of Korea (79.2%), the United States (78.4%), Japan (79.1%), and China (77.7%).
The 2024 figures confirm two key trends. The first is the formation of a stable bipolar structure in global R&D, led by China and the United States. The second is the continuing democratization of innovation, with a growing number of middle-income countries not only increasing their volume but also building effective funding models based on private capital.
Global R&D spending is steadily advancing toward the psychologically significant $3 trillion mark, with the primary momentum today coming from the economies of Asia and other developing regions of the world.
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As the innovation epicenter shifts, securing your intellectual property (IP) in high-growth markets is paramount. Patentica provides comprehensive intellectual property protection services across the Eurasian region, offering reliable legal support for innovations at every stage—from filing to enforcement and defense of IP rights.
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