The 2026 US-India Subnational Innovation Competitiveness Index

ITIF | Amit Kapoor, Stephen Ezell, Trelysa Long and Sheen Zutshi

The United States holds the top 51 places in the 2026 US-India Subnational Innovation Competitiveness Index, which ranks 87 regions on 12 indicators. The District of Columbia, Massachusetts and California lead. Chandigarh, Maharashtra and Delhi top India but rank below every US state, according to ITIF and the Institute for Competitiveness, India.

Three groups of indicators carry the scoring: knowledge economy at 44.3 percent, globalisation at 11.3 percent and innovation capacity at 44.4 percent. India ranked 38th among 138 economies in the Global Innovation Index 2025, against 3rd for the United States, having risen from 81st in 2015. Manufacturing made up 14.7 percent of India’s total gross value added in 2022–2023, the lowest since 1968–1969. Chandigarh has surpassed Mississippi’s and Hawaii’s knowledge scores. Maharashtra has surpassed 10 US states on innovation capacity, and Delhi has surpassed Alaska. The US score range is about 37 points; India’s is about 23.

Comment

The manufacturing indicator measures gross value added per worker in purchasing power parity terms, so it is an average and not a count of output. Sikkim posts $72,826 per employee, far above Jharkhand at $28,630 and Odisha at $25,088, while most Indian regions report $2,000 to $29,000. A state with few factories could reach such a figure through a handful of capital-intensive plants, and the source gives no employment base for Sikkim.

The index shows the same distortion in the United States, where the source says oil and gas skew Wyoming’s $388,942 and Louisiana’s $314,503. Manufacturing productivity sits inside the knowledge-economy group, which carries 44.3 percent of the weight, so a skewed average could lift a region’s headline rank. Wyoming ranks second on the knowledge pillar and tenth overall, yet 38th on innovation capacity.

Sikkim’s $72,826 could therefore reflect averaging over a narrow base, whereas the 14.7 percent national share describes Indian manufacturing as a whole.

Strategic Question for Discussion

If Sikkim’s $72,826 in manufacturing productivity rests on a narrow base, which carries more weight in judging India’s industrial depth: that figure or the 14.7 percent national share, and what would tip the balance?

My assessment is that the national share carries more weight, since it covers the whole sector, while Sikkim’s figure is one average the source does not tie to employment numbers. The balance would tip only if employment data showed Sikkim’s productivity spread across many plants and workers. Wyoming’s $388,942, which the source links to oil and gas, shows how a high average can reflect the commodity base.

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