Taipei-Hsinchu ranks No. 25 sci-tech cluster globally: WIPO

Taipei, Aug. 28 (CNA) Taipei-Hsinchu ranked as the 25th largest science and technology (S&T) cluster in the world in 2024, according to the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) of the United Nations.

In the Global Innovation Index 2024, released Tuesday, Taipei-Hsinchu rose two notches from a year earlier to secure the spot as the 25th S&T cluster in the world.

WIPO's Global Innovation Index publishes the top 100 science and technology clusters ranking annually, using patent application and scientific publication data to identify local concentrations of the leading science and technology activities in the world.

Since 2016, the index has employed a bottom-up approach to identifying such clusters, while the methodology disregards administrative or political borders and instead focuses on those geographical areas that boast a high density of inventors and scientific authors, according to WIPO.

As one of the three science parks in Taiwan, the Hsinchu Science Park houses many tech giants, such as contract chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC), which has served as the largest patent applicant in the country for years.

In the 2024 rankings, Tokyo-Yokohama of Japan retained the title as the top-performing S&T cluster in the world, ahead of China's Shenzhen-Hong Kong-Guangzhou, the ranking of which was unchanged.

WIPO said the two clusters secured the top two spots in the 2024 rankings as they had a large output of Patent Cooperation Treat (PCT) applications, thanks in great part to patents filed by Mitsubishi Electric Corp., located in Tokyo-Yokohama, and Huawei Technologies Co., located in Shenzhen-Hong Kong-Guangzhou, respectively.

Beijing of China came in third followed by Seoul in South Korea, Shanghai-Suzhou in China, San Jose-San Francisco in the United States, Osaka-Kobe-Kyoto in Japan, Boston-Cambridge in the U.S., Nanjing in China, and San Diego of the U.S.

Among the top 100 S&T clusters in 2024, China owned 26 spots, ahead of 20 held by the U.S.