What happened
According to a report by Dawn, Pakistan advanced four places to rank 95th among 139 global economies in the World Intellectual Property Organisation’s (WIPO) Global Innovation Index 2026. This reflects an improvement from its 99th position in 2025. The country also regained its classification as an "overperformer" for the fourth time, having previously held the status in 2022 and 2024. WIPO assigns this designation to economies that achieve innovation results above expectations for their level of economic development.
Key facts
The report outlined several key details regarding Pakistan's rankings and global innovation trends:
- Pakistan ranked 121st in innovation inputs and 72nd in innovation outputs, showing improvement in both areas compared to the prior year.
- The country's core strengths were concentrated in the digital sector, including mobile application development, software spending, high-tech imports, and information and communication technology (ICT) services exports.
- Regionally and economically, Pakistan placed 15th among 36 lower middle-income economies and 8th among 11 economies evaluated in Central and Southern Asia.
- Over the past seven years, Pakistan ranked 107th in 2020, 99th in 2021, 87th in 2022, 88th in 2023, 91st in 2024, and 99th in 2025.
- On the global stage, Switzerland, Sweden, and the United States remained the top three innovation economies, with Switzerland holding the top position for a 16th consecutive year.
Why it matters
As noted by Dawn, WIPO explained that overperformance shows innovation does not follow a direct path from income level to outcomes, allowing economies to generate higher results by focusing on specific strengths. Pakistan's growing digital economy was supported by university quality and scientific output. Globally, innovation activity faces a more demanding environment as overall economic growth is projected to slow from about 3.4 percent in 2025 to around 3 percent in 2026. However, major investments in artificial intelligence infrastructure—expected to exceed $1 trillion across 2025 and 2026—continue to drive technological progress.
Source: Dawn - Home · Published October 29, 2026 · Photo by Huzaifa Afzal on Unsplash
