Authors
Mike Wardle, Professor Michael Mainelli
Published by
Long Finance & Distributed Futures (December 2025), 52 pages.
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The Smart Centres Index 12
The twelfth edition of the Smart Centres Index was published on 4 December 2025. SCI 12 rates the innovation and technology offerings of leading commercial centres, tracking their ability to create, develop, and deploy technology.
The SCI is a factor assessment index, combining a number of instrumental factors - data measures drawn from a range of data providers across the world - and assessments given by business and finance professionals of three dimensions related to innovation and technology in major commercial and financial centres:
- Innovation Support - the support provided by regulatory and other systems to innovation and technology in a centre.
- Creative Intensity - the intensity of technology and innovation services and opportunities in a centre.
- Delivery Capability - the quality of the technology and innovation work that is taking place in a centre.
131 commercial and financial centres were researched for SCI 12 of which 77 are included in the index. SCI 12 was compiled using 134 instrumental factors. These quantitative measures are provided by third parties including the World Bank, the OECD, and the United Nations.
The instrumental factors are combined with financial centre assessments provided by respondents to the SCI online questionnaire. SCI 12 uses 2,342 assessments provided by 411 respondents.
SCI 12 Results
- Zurich took first place in the index, with London and Singapore overtaking San Francisco to take second and third positions.
- Five Western European centres feature in the top 10, alongside two US centres
- Busan and Tel Aviv also feature in the top 10.
- Six centres rose 10 or more places in the ranking in SCI 12, while five centres fell 10 or more places.
- The average rating in SCI 12 rose by 3.33%, building on a rise of 0.63% in SCI 11.
- The biggest increase in average ratings of 4.01% was in Eastern Europe & Central Asia, while the lowest increase in the average rating was for North America where ratings rose 2.46%.
- Assessments in the SCI survey appear to favour centres with strong people skills. This assists leading centres such as Zurich, Singapore, San Francisco, and London.