The Top 100 organizations lead the way in innovation, contributing an exceptional 16% of the world’s highest-strength AI inventions
LONDON, UK–Clarivate Plc, a leading global provider of transformative intelligence, announced the 15th edition of its Top 100 Global Innovators. This annual benchmark celebrates the organizations that consistently deliver high-impact inventions, shaping the future of innovation across industries. The 2026 report reveals how innovation leadership is shifting from scale to precision, and how artificial intelligence (AI) is accelerating this transformation. No Canadian organization was mentioned this year.
Clarivate Reveals Top 100 Global Innovators 2026
The Top 100 Global Innovators navigate complexity with clarity and set the pace for invention quality, originality and global reach. These organizations account for a disproportionate share of the world’s most valuable ideas, demonstrating that innovation leadership is defined by precision and strategic intent. This year’s ranking not only celebrates enduring innovation leadership, but it also reveals the forces reshaping that leadership, with AI at the forefront.
Maroun S. Mourad, President, Intellectual Property, Clarivate, said: “Recognition as a Top 100 Global Innovator is a remarkable achievement given the pace of change and in the 2026 edition, we feature 16 all-time recipient organizations. Multi-year winners and new entrants are investing in AI innovation as it redefines the boundaries between research, engineering and commercial execution. The leaders we celebrate today are not just responding to this shift, they are designing for it.”
AI is no longer a side story; it has become part of the fabric of innovation. The Top 100 Global Innovators 2026 analysis shows that AI-related patent activity has surged dramatically in recent years, with filings doubling repeatedly since 2019 and more than one million invention specifications published by mid-2025. Generative AI and deep learning have grown at an extraordinary pace, making them the fastest-moving frontiers in technology. Within this landscape, the Top 100 Global Innovators account for 16% of the world’s strongest AI inventions, underscoring that leadership today is about quality and strategic clarity, not just volume.
Japan continues to lead the global innovation landscape, with 32 organizations named. It also holds five of the top 10 ranked positions, followed by Mainland China and South Korea, each with two and the United States with one. Following Japan, the United States, with 18 organizations, Taiwan, with 12, and Germany and South Korea, both with eight, remain the largest contributors overall. Countries/regions showing growth in organizations listed include Mainland China, and the Netherlands, while Ireland and Saudi Arabia return to the list this year.
Other key findings from the 2026 report include:
- Samsung Electronics retains its position as the #1 ranked global innovator
- Six companies awarded Top 100 status for the first time: Aptiv, CXMT, GE Vernova, Silicon Motion, Subaru and ZTE
- Six companies re-enter the Top 100: Apple, KLA, LG Display, Saudi Aramco, Signify and TCL Technology
- 16 all-time recipient organizations retained Top 100 Global Innovator status: Boeing, Dow, Ericsson, Fujitsu, Hitachi, Honda, Honeywell, LG Electronics, NEC, Panasonic, Qualcomm, Samsung Electronics, Shin-Etsu Chemical, Sony, Toshiba, and Toyota.
The Top 100 Global Innovators analysis is underpinned by the Clarivate Center for IP and Innovation Research. Their analyses are founded in rigorous research leveraging the proprietary Derwent Strength Index, derived from the Derwent World Patents Index (DWPI) and its global invention data to measure the influence of ideas, their success and rarity, and the investment in inventions.
The Top 100 Global Innovators uses a complete comparative analysis of global invention data to assess the strength of every patented idea, using measures tied directly to their innovative power. To move from the individual strength of inventions to identifying the organizations that create them more consistently and frequently, Clarivate sets two threshold criteria that potential candidates must meet and then adds a measure of their internationally patented innovation output over the past five years.
The Clarivate Center for IP and Innovation Research empowers organizations worldwide to excel by providing expert guidance grounded in pioneering benchmarks and data-driven insights. Bringing together senior practitioners, consultants and data analysts, the Center performs research to establish and disseminate benchmarks that guide management and strategy. It works with legal, IP and innovation leaders to optimize IP operations and technology and improve IP decision-making, supported by industry-leading data, analytics and proven practices.
Clarivate is a leading global provider of transformative intelligence. We offer enriched data, insights & analytics, workflow solutions and expert services in the areas of Academia & Government, Intellectual Property and Life Sciences & Healthcare.
