Intangible Investment Tops USD 10 Trillion for the First Time, Growing More Than Three Times Faster Than Tangible Investment

Investment in intangible assets crossed the USD 10 trillion mark for the first time in 2025, with the United States alone accounting for nearly half of the total, as investments in software, data, brands and other intellectual property-backed assets rose even as spending on machinery and buildings lagged under tight financing conditions and economic uncertainty.

According to new figures from the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) and Italy's Luiss Business School (LBS), intangible investment has grown 5.5 percent annually between 2020 and 2025, compared with 3.2 percent for tangible investment. It now accounts for nearly 13 percent of GDP across the economies covered, marking a durable structural shift in the composition of investment, the report shows.

The third edition of the World Intangible Investment Highlights covers 29 high- and middle-income economies, together about 57 percent of world GDP, adding the first-ever estimates for Canada and the Philippines and updated figures for Brazil, India and Japan.

This record-breaking rise in intangible asset investment clearly shows that global economic value is shifting from physical assets to intangible assets. This cuts across both mature and emerging economies.

This data shows that countries and businesses are increasingly turning to innovation, technology and creativity to drive growth. I hope that the report gives decision makers insights into these trends and help them put in place the right policies, practices and programs to support their innovators and creators.

Companies and government entities in the United States of America (US) invested nearly USD 5 trillion in intangibles in 2025, by far the most of any economy that was studied. The gap between the US and the next four economies combined has roughly doubled over the past decade, from about USD 1 trillion in 2015 to USD 2 trillion in 2025.