(Yicai) Sept. 21 -- China has overtaken the United States to rank first for the number of science and technology clusters for the first time, according to the World Intellectual Property Organization’s Global Innovation Index 2023.

China has 24 S&T clusters among the top 100 in the world, followed by the US with 21, according to the rankings report released yesterday.

Asian clusters dominated the top five places, with China occupying three. Japan’s Tokyo-Yokohama cluster topped the charts, with China’s Shenzhen-Hong Kong-Guangzhou in second place for the second year in a row. Seoul in South Korea was third, overtaking Beijing, which fell to fourth. China’s Shanghai-Suzhou edged up one position to finish in the top five for the first time.

Since 2016, the GII has sought to identify S&T clusters using a bottom-up approach, according to the WIPO, which says this approach disregards administrative or political borders and instead pinpoints those geographical areas that show a high density of inventors and scientific authors.

The resultant clusters often encompass several municipal districts, sub-federal states, and sometimes even two or more countries, according to the WIPO.

Two innovation metrics are used to compile the top 100 GII S&T clusters worldwide: the location of inventors listed on published patent applications and authors listed in published scientific articles.

The Chinese cities of Zhenjiang, Hefei, and Wuxi climbed the most in this year’s top 100 S&T clusters ranking, with Zhenjiang, Wuxi, and Fuzhou entering the list for the first time, the report showed.

China is actively promoting the development of S&T clusters, also known as technology parks or innovation hubs, as a key strategy to foster innovation, drive economic growth, and boost the country’s global competitiveness.

Editor: Martin Kadiev