Investment in Intangibles surges 3% to $7.6 trillion in 2024 across 27 key economies, led by spending on software and databases due to AI boom

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The second edition of the World Intangible Investment Highlights, co-published by the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) and Italy's Luiss Business School, shows that intangible investment across 27 high- and middle-income economies grew by about 3%in real terms, reaching $7.6 trillion in 2024, up from $7.4 trillion in 2023.

The new report is based on data from WIPO and the Luiss Business School, which co-ordinates the Global INTAN-Invest database, launched last year and an expansion of the highly influential INTAN-Invest database. Global INTAN-Invest collates cross-country quarterly and annual measures of intangible assets for high-income and emerging economies.

WIPO Director General Daren Tang said at the launch of the report today (09/07/2025):

“We're witnessing a fundamental shift in how economies grow and compete. While businesses have slowed down investing in factories and equipment during uncertain times, they're doubling down on intangible assets – IP, AI, data, software, know-how and others.”

“This trend has profound implications for policymakers. Countries that understand and nurture intangible investment will be better positioned to grow and thrive in a global economy increasingly driven by technological, digital and cultural innovation.”

Cecilia Jona-Lasinio, Professor, Luiss Business School, and co-author of the report, observes:

“The sustained rise in intangible investment reflects its critical role in driving competitiveness and productivity in today’s economy. This shift is particularly evident in the age of AI, where economic growth depends on combined investments in software, data, skills and organizational capital. This report and the underlying Global INTAN-Invest database provide policymakers with the timely data they need to understand and support this transformation.”

The key message from this year’s report is that investment in intangible assets such as data, software, brands and other intellectual property-backed assets grew three times faster in 2024 than investment in physical assets such as machinery and buildings.

In 2024, intangible asset investment by the US was far higher than other countries; in fact, the US investment in intangibles was nearly double that of France, Germany, Japan and the United Kingdom combined, the next-biggest countries for intangible funding.

Sweden maintained its leading position as the most intangible-asset-intensive economy, with intangible investment at 16% of its gross domestic product (GDP). Sweden is followed by the US, France, and Finland (all with an intensity of 15% of GDP). India's intangible investment intensity (close to 1%) puts it ahead of several European Union (EU) economies, as well as Japan. Brazil's intangible intensity (8.5%) is comparable to some EU economies, too.

WIPO says the report demonstrates that investment in intangible assets has shown sustained and resilient growth even during periods of crisis, increasing at a compound annual rate of about 4% between 2008 and 2024, far outpacing tangible investment growth of just 1%.

Other key takeaways from the report:

• Intangible investment constitutes a growing share of GDP (close to 14% in 2024), compared with tangible investment's share (11%).

• India recorded the fastest growth in intangible investment between 2011-2022 at 6.6% annually, outpacing several highly intangible-intensive economies.

• In Brazil, the most recent data show that its intangible investment surged at 14% compared to tangible investment growth of 8%.

• Software and databases emerge as the fastest growing type of intangible assets, expanding at over 7% annually between 2013-2022.

Spotlight on Artificial Intelligence

The report includes a special section exploring the impact of the current artificial intelligence (AI) boom, with “What types of investments are driven by the AI boom?” as its special theme.

It finds that AI creates two waves of investment: an initial "capacity installation" phase building infrastructure (such as chips, servers, data centres), followed by a "structural transformation" phase where firms reorganize their business processes and retrain workforces to embed the use of AI more deeply.

The impact of AI on tangible infrastructure investment is already visible in the US, where tangible investment grew over 4% between 2023 and 2024, driven by major AI hard and soft infrastructure – i.e. massive investments in AI supercomputing, cloud capacity and other AI-related hardware investments – exerting a macroeconomically significant influence on overall investment trends in the US.

In other countries, this trend is more nascent, with AI-related tangible investments only starting to emerge and broader impacts on national investment figures expected in the coming years, the report says.