Where does the digital economy go to school?

Careers in, ranked institutions out

We take 213,732 real career profiles, from engineers to founders to executives, and trace each one, degree by degree, back to the institution that trained them. That is 665,185 degrees in all.

To keep the comparison fair, an institution is scored on how efficiently it converts graduates into high-impact careers, not on how many graduates it has. A 5,000-student engineering school can outrank a 50,000-student university.

Every country plays a different game

The same 150 places are handed out four separate times, and the shape of each column is different. Computer Science is the most American ranking on the map: 62 of its 150 places, more than four in ten.

India is the strongest non-Anglophone bench there with 16. France ties India in Entrepreneurship with 9 each. Australia is strongest in Digital Transformation.

Data: institutions in each ranking's top 150, by country

Country	Data and AI	Computer Science	Entrepreneurship	Digital Transformation
United States	44	62	54	39
United Kingdom	15	10	16	15
India	10	16	9	10
Australia	10	5	5	13
Canada	10	10	5	5
France	9	4	9	6
Israel	5	7	6	6
China	5	7	2	5
Spain	5	4	4	5
Germany	10	2	2	1
Switzerland	2	2	4	4
Brazil	2	2	4	3

The map has two capitals

MIT takes first place in Data and AI and in Computer Science. Harvard takes first in Entrepreneurship and in Digital Transformation. One owns the rankings that build the technology; the other owns the ones that fund and lead it.

The gap is widest in Computer Science, where Harvard sits at #7, its lowest placing anywhere.

Data: MIT and Harvard, world rank in each ranking

Ranking	MIT	Harvard
Data and AI	#1	#3
Computer Science	#1	#7
Entrepreneurship	#3	#1
Digital Transformation	#2	#1

Specialists or all-rounders, not much in between

105 institutions make exactly one of the four rankings. 73 make all four. The middle is thin: on this evidence, breadth is either there or it is not.

The all-rounders are not only the names you would expect: five of India's IITs are among them.

Data: the 275 institutions on the map, by number of rankings they place in

Rankings placed in	Institutions
All four	73
Three	31
Two	55
One	105
None (Next 50 only)	11

Ten countries hold seven in ten places

The United States takes 48 of the 200 places, the United Kingdom 19, India 15. The ten countries named here hold 141 of 200, just over 70%, leaving 59 places for the other 31 countries.

Data: the Global 200, by country

Country	Institutions
United States	48
United Kingdom	19
India	15
Australia	12
France	11
Canada	11
China	8
Spain	6
Israel	6
Germany	5
31 other countries	59

As a bloc, Europe edges North America

Recolour the same 200 squares by region and the American lead narrows to nothing: Western Europe holds 60 places, North America 59. Asia follows with 33.

Data: the Global 200, by world region

Region	Institutions
Western Europe	60
North America	59
Asia	33
MENA	14
Latin America	14
Oceania	13
Eastern Europe	4
Sub-Saharan Africa	3

Regions are Emerging's own groupings. Israel and Turkey sit in MENA, not in Asia or Europe.

Nearly three in ten are specialists

Traditional universities hold 142 of the 200 places. The remaining 58 are science-and-technology schools or business schools, exactly the kind of focused institution an efficiency measure is built to surface.

Data: the Global 200, by institution type

Type	Institutions
University	142
Science & tech school	36
Business school	12
University + business school	10

And they cluster

The map tracks 15 innovation hubs. Paris carries 13 ranked institutions, nearly twice as many as Greater Boston or London's Golden Triangle, which tie on seven.

Data: ranked institutions in each innovation hub

Hub	Institutions
Paris	13
Greater Boston Area	7
Golden Triangle	7
Tel Aviv-Jerusalem	5
San Francisco Bay Area	5
São Paulo	5
Los Angeles	4
New York City	4
Sydney	4
Melbourne	4
Beijing	3
Toronto–Waterloo Corridor	3
Singapore	3
Tallinn	1
Cape Town	1

Hub membership is counted across all 275 institutions on the map, not only the Global 200. That is why Paris shows 13 while France holds 11 Global places.

Overall strength: the ranking's own currency

An institution placed first is worth 150 DL Points, one placed 150th is worth 1, and a country's score is the sum of every placing its institutions hold. The United States leads with 3,469 points, more than double the United Kingdom's 1,547.

Data: total DL Points by country (Global ranking)

Country	DL Points	Institutions on the map
United States	3,469	74
United Kingdom	1,547	21
Australia	908	13
Canada	704	14
France	529	16
Israel	478	7
India	432	19
China	412	9
Spain	343	10
Germany	264	10

Then divide by population

Israel earns 51.6 DL Points per million people, five times the American rate, from a base of seven institutions. Singapore reaches 44.9 and Estonia 44.6, the latter on a single ranked institution.

Data: DL Points per million people, labelled countries

Country	DL Points per million people
Israel	51.6
Singapore	44.9
Estonia	44.6
Australia	34
Switzerland	29
United Kingdom	23
United States	10
China	0.3
India	0.3

Population comes from the country file behind the map; its vintage should be confirmed before publication, since every figure here depends on it.

And the table turns over

India falls from 7th to 32nd. China falls from 8th to 33rd. Estonia climbs from 25th to 3rd, Israel from 6th to 1st. Size and density are simply not the same story.

Data: country rank by total DL Points and by DL Points per million people

Country	Rank by total	Rank per million
United States	1	12
United Kingdom	2	6
Australia	3	4
Canada	4	9
France	5	13
Israel	6	1
India	7	32
China	8	33
Spain	9	15
Germany	10	17
Singapore	11	2
Switzerland	12	5
Sweden	15	10
Denmark	18	8
Ireland	19	7
New Zealand	23	11
Estonia	25	3

Evolution: who gained, who lost

France added the most ground between the two editions, +112 points, ahead of Italy, the UK, Brazil and Denmark. India's −421 is the sharpest national decline on the map.

A country can lose points without losing institutions: a school slipping from 40th to 90th costs its country 50 points on its own.

Data: change in total DL Points, 2025 to 2026

Country	Change
France	+112
Italy	+88
United Kingdom	+66
Brazil	+64
Denmark	+54
South Africa	−32
Argentina	−33
Canada	−43
Germany	−58
India	−421

Milan climbed 63 places. Kanpur fell 58.

Politecnico di Milano rose from 150th to 87th, ahead of Illinois Urbana-Champaign at +53 and two French institutions, Paris-Dauphine and INSEAD, at +47 each. Waterloo climbed 39 places into the global top 20.

The steepest falls belong to a cluster of Indian institutions, IIT Kanpur, IIT Delhi and Mumbai University, each down between 48 and 58 places. Germany moved both directions at once: TU Munich held the top ten while TU Berlin fell 52.

Data: biggest climbs and steepest falls in Global rank

Institution	2025	2026	Change
Politecnico di Milano (Italy)	150	87	+63
Illinois Urbana-Champaign (US)	148	95	+53
INSEAD (France)	110	63	+47
Paris-Dauphine – PSL (France)	122	75	+47
Universidad de Los Andes (Colombia)	137	96	+41
TU Berlin (Germany)	32	84	−52
IIT Delhi (India)	45	100	−55
IIT Kanpur (India)	68	126	−58
Mumbai University (India)	88	136	−48

Only the 145 institutions ranked in both editions can move. Of those, 81 rose, 61 fell and 3 held their place.

The map keeps widening

Six institutions are new to the Global top 150 this year: Aalto, HEC Paris, Koç, Seoul National, HKUST and Maryland. Eleven more arrive through the Next 50 tier, among them KAUST, MBZUAI and the University of Bologna.

They bring eight countries onto the Digital Leaders map for the first time: Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Morocco, Egypt, Chile, Romania, Ukraine and Lebanon.

Data: new on the map in 2026

Group	Names
6 new to the Global top 150	Aalto University, HEC Paris, Koç University, Seoul National University, HKUST, University of Maryland
11 new to the map through the Next 50 tier	KAUST (Saudi Arabia), MBZUAI (UAE), University of Bologna, Singapore Management University, Istanbul Technical University, UM6P (Morocco), Cairo University, University of Johannesburg, Universidad Nacional de Colombia, PUCRS (Brazil), Torcuato Di Tella (Argentina)
8 countries on the map for the first time	Chile, Egypt, Lebanon, Morocco, Romania, Saudi Arabia, Ukraine, UAE