Taiwan on track to overtake France as four countries climb the global R&D ranks by 2028 

The global pecking order of countries spending the most on research was once relatively stable. In the previous order, the U.S. spent the most, China the second and countries like Germany, Japan and South Korea rounded out the next tier. But the order is shifting. Now, China is on top based on purchasing power parity (PPP), and Taiwan, officially the Republic of China, is on track to pull ahead of France in 2028 with a projected $111 billion on R&D, putting it in eighth place overall.  

Taiwan, which makes the vast majority of the world’s advanced graphic process units (GPUs) underlying the AI boom, saw its spending intensity rise from 3.16% in 2015 to 4.1% in 2024. That figure could reach 4.46% by 2028. Meanwhile, France’s intensity has stayed largely flat at about 2.2%. Taiwan’s semiconductor industry performs about half of the economies total R&D spending according to the European Center for International Political Economy (ECIPE), so it’s chipmakers could give the country an edge over France, although the projected $1.7 billion gap is smaller than either’s forecast interval.  

Türkiye, the native spelling and the official name of Turkey, has had steady R&D spending growth, rising an average of 10.9% annually when accounting for inflation from 2013 to 2023, the fastest of any country in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) database. The country is projected to pass Brazil in 2027, when its total R&D spending it projected to reach $67.5 billion against Brazil’s $66.4 billion. In 2028, Türkiye is projected to secure eleventh place with $73.1 billion in R&D spending.  

Defense, aviation and aerospace drove much of this expansion, especially after the industry ministry launched its National Technology Initiative in 2017. Indirect incentives such as tax credits covered 25.1% of private sector R&D spending in 2024, up from 14.8% in 2015.  

In the 2025 Turkishtime R&D 500 ranking, five defense and aerospace firms account for about 58% of the R&D reported by all 500 companies. This is partly a product of being cut off from U.S. weapons in 2020 after Türkiye took delivery of Russia’s S-400 missile defense system, which accelerated the shift toward domestic fighters, drones and air defense.  

Home to LG Electronics and Samsung Electronics, South Korea has rapidly extended its innovation machinery in recent years. Its R&D spending now is in the ballpark of 5% of its GDP, up from 3.79% in 2015 and second to Israel in intensity. Companies performed 81.4% of Kora’s R&D spending in 2024 while government funding dipped. The recent acceleration comes largely from chips. Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix are generating unprecedented profits from demand for high-bandwidth memory for AI. Seoul raised its 2026 R&D budget a record 19.3% to 35.3 trillion won ($25.1 billion), targeting AI, biotechnology, defense, energy and manufacturing and plans to raise it another 11.2% to 39.5 trillion won next year. Our latest forecast projects it to reach 5.64% of GDP for a total of $216.4 in R&D spending in 2028, passing Germany, which is projected to remain in fourth place with $221.9 billion.  

Poland is projected to climb four places as it reaches a projected $36.3 billion in R&D spending in 2028, passing Sweden, Australia, Switzerland and Belgium. The climb builds on 15 years of playing catch-up. Poland’s R&D intensity rose from 0.66% of GDP in 2009 to 1.41%, a gain that trails only Belgium and Greece in the EU. Businesses have taken on more of the load, funding 57.8% of R&D in 2024, up from 39% in 2015, and EU funds made up 86% of Poland’s foreign R&D funding in 2023. Defense spending in the country reached an estimated 4.25% of GDP in 2025, the highest in NATO, while its R&D intensity slipped 0.15 points in 2024 to 1.41%.