For the past half century, the technological knowledge adoption lag has omitted due to citation data truncation. For more details see the Technical annex in the full report. Source: WIPO based on EPO Patstat, 2025, Autumn edition. Are geographical barriers to knowledge flows at an end? but vanished. In 1988, international patent citations took on average 12 percent longer than domestic citations. By 2020, the difference between the two had essentially disappeared, Despite faster global diffusion of technological knowledge, analysis reveals a striking concentration in a handful of economies. Primarily, the United States, Western Europe such as biotechnology, artificial intelligence (AI), quantum computing, and advanced materials discoveries into industrially viable deep tech applications. just a handful of economies. The United States, Western Europe and Japan absorb scientific knowledge from virtually every global source available. Technologies with higher scientific content travel longer distances and are more likely to generate new inventor clusters worldwide.